Bishop's War
by Obsidian Productions
Summary: Eric Bishop is a security guard working for Black Mesa. He's just hit the two year mark in his employment and is beginning to wonder if there's a lot more to life. But just as he's considering quitting, his life of boring routine abruptly switches to a lethal battle for survival as Black Mesa is invaded by creatures from beyond our universe and military teams intent on a cover up.
1. Zero Hour

_**H λ **__**L F – L I F E  
-Bishop's War-**_

_**Chapter 01  
**-Zero Hour-_

* * *

_**Subject: **Eric Bishop_

_**Eduction: **Belton High School_

_**Assignment: **Security_

_**Clearance: **Level 2_

_**Disaster Response Priority  
****High: **Preservation of equipment/materials  
**Secondary: **Welfare of research personnel  
**Low: **Personal safety_

* * *

Eric woke up roughly sixty seconds before his alarm was set to go off. With a quiet grunt, he reached over and killed it before it could blare to life. He hated setting the alarm so loud, it was tuned to a dead channel so it shrieked undeniable static in the mornings, but his job was simply too important to be late. And, so far, it had served him well: he hadn't been late once during his entire two year tenure at Black Mesa.

Sighing quietly, Eric Bishop rolled over onto his back and rubbed his eyes. In the dim light offered by his clock, he spied the same, bland ceiling that he had awoken to every day for a very long time now. He laid there for several moments, contemplating the dreams he'd had, (those he remembered), and the long day that was spread out before him, eagerly awaiting his attention. Finally, he pulled the blankets back and stood.

The floor was cold. It always was. He'd often contemplated getting a rug of some kind, to place over the bare linoleum, but ultimately decided against it each time. Eric was a heavy sleeper and getting up in the morning was always a struggle, even now. It was nowhere near as bad as it had been during his teenage years, staying up all night, catching a few hours of sleep and then dragging his sorry ass to school. No, the Corps had seen a very thorough end to that. But still, every little thing helped. Including a very chilled floor on your bare feet.

Eric spent the next twenty minutes going through his morning rituals. Having a good piss, brushing his teeth and then shaving, staring at the haggard face that peered unhappily back at him in the mirror. He finished up, washed his face off with a cupped handful of cold water and then started up the shower. Turning it up as hot as he could stand it, Eric stripped of what little clothing he slept in and slipped in.

For now, there was nothing to think about. But he knew that wouldn't last. And besides, he couldn't hang out in the shower forever. He washed himself, killed the water and toweled off. By the time he had his freshly pressed uniform on, it was inching towards seven thirty. Another half an hour before he had to officially clock in.

Eric left the living quarters he called home and stepped out into the brilliantly lit corridor. The walls were lined with doors, stretching away from him. This was where security lived. Eric found dark thoughts descending on him as he began to make for the messhall. He'd 'celebrated' his two year mark at the Black Mesa Research Facility last weekend with a handful of men he might call friends and a pair of twenty four packs of cheap booze.

Eric didn't drink, not anymore. It was a habit he had fallen into during his eighteenth year. Illegally, obviously, but he had friends, and his dad didn't really care. After kicking the habit, he only drank heavily when he was particularly upset. It wasn't that he didn't have a good job, he did. It wasn't that he felt somehow inadequate, he knew that he wasn't. He was fit, intelligent, passingly social and something of a jack-of-all-trades now.

It was just that...was this it? Was this the life? His bank account was fat: Black Mesa paid very well and provided room and board. He knew he was doing _damned_ good for a guy who had barely graduated high school and left the Corps behind under something of a cloud. He had no great debts, no meaningful guilt and anything resembling a love life had died out before Black Mesa. So really, he had nothing but this job. This _good _job.

So why was he thinking about leaving it? Eric sighed and stepped into the messhall. It was more alive than usual, packed nearly to bursting. A sea of voices assaulted his ears as he went to grab food from the buffet-style serving area. There was a line and by the time he got to the food, he hardly had any time to think. So, he grabbed his favorite: corned beef hash, bacon and some scrambled eggs. He also grabbed a big glass of milk and threaded his way through the crowd towards the least occupied table.

Someone had left a copy of the _Black Mesa Times_ and Eric buried his head in the banal writings of whoever was running the newspaper. He ate and read, thinking of nothing, trying to find out what all the fuss was about today. Eric had been vaguely aware of the fact that something was upcoming, as the tension had slowly been building over the last month. He found himself running down more random tasks, as the scientists and security guards alike had come to rely on him to run some basic maintenance.

Finally, he realized that they were running some kind of grand experiment, and someone from the government was coming to have a look. He shifted to another article and sighed heavily. Another piece from the man himself, Wallace Breen, the administrative head of Black Mesa. He had taken to using the _Times_ as a way to drone on and on and _on_ about community and working together and synergy and whatever other bullshit hype-word or generic concept he had grown fond of for the week. The man could talk about nothing for a long time.

Eric glanced at his watch and cursed briefly. He shoved the paper aside, hurriedly finished his meal and dropped the dirty dishes off at the conveyer-belt receptacle. Almost eight. He hurried out of the messhall and to the trams. Dark thoughts returned as he came to the platform and waited impatiently for the next one to come along. If he left Black Mesa, where would he go? There were lots of places, he supposed. Florida, Hawaii, Paris? It sounded far-fetched, but it was completely within his grasp.

There would always be work for a man who not only knew how to shoot a gun and shoot it well, but was willing to do so. The tram arrived. Eric stepped aboard with a clutch of other security guards and sat in the back, brooding.

* * *

Security was a mess. Eric flashed his card at the door and the guard on duty barely even looked at it before waving him through. The entryway was packed with guards, all of them getting or giving orders and then being shoved out whatever door they had to go through. Eric made his way through the mess. Before he did anything, he needed his gear. He moved through the shifting crowd and murmuring ocean of voices to the corridor at the back. He followed his usual route, keeping up against the wall, towards the locker room.

What experiment was so important that it had caused this level of upheaval? Eric tried not to think about the research that went on deep inside the confines of the facility, hidden out deep in the New Mexico desert. Initially, he'd been excited, wondering what kind of mysteries he would get to see and be forced to keep silent about. But after a year and a half of nothing interesting at all, he'd basically given up hope.

Then, over the past few months, he'd began hearing rumors. There were always rumors, but they tended to vary. What worried him was that these rumors seemed to be following a pattern and staying very consistent. There was talk of bizarre creatures being held in captivity. Even the scientists were talking about it. A few security guards claimed to have been forced to put down a very alien looking dog creature in one of the far labs.

Eric had finally reached a point where he decided he didn't want to know. While it was counter-intuitive to his life philosophy, as he believed in always being prepared, this ultimately seemed too ridiculous or too dangerous. And it had faded from his mind. Until today. Did this swelling of excitement have something to do with those creatures? Eric reached the locker room and found his locker.

He opened it and pulled on his combat vest and began to reach for his helmet, only to stop. It was missing. Eric sighed heavily. It was probably Scott again. The man was an idiot, and likely to get fired soon if he kept the bullshit up. Eric grabbed his radio and turned it on. He'd need to explain that he'd have to get another helmet. But he had hardly booted the radio up before his superior's voice came tumbling out of it.

_"-the hell are you, Bishop!?"_ Eric sighed and hit the reply button.

"Just getting switched on, Peter. I still need to get my gun and my helmet's missing. I need to get a replacement."

_"Forget it, Bishop. Come to the front desk, I'll have a gun and holster waiting for you. We've got too much to do today. I need you out into the facility twenty minutes ago. Now get up here!"_ Eric sighed again, heavier this time.

"On my way." He felt reluctant to head out without a helmet, but what could he do? He slammed his locker shut, pocketed the radio and headed out of the locker. It felt weird not to go to the armory, it was on the way and something he'd done almost every day for the past two years. It was a solid habit. But he pushed on back to the central lobby. The crowd had thinned out somewhat as the last of the security personnel had finally trickled in and those in charge had shuffled them out just as quickly as they had come.

He found Peter behind his desk, a 9mm Glock 17 sitting in its holster in front of him. Peter was staring into his computer screen, typing furiously. He barely glanced up as Eric approached, grabbed the holstered pistol and attached it to his belt.

"So what's the big deal?" Eric asked.

"Some big fancy experiment the eggheads have going on today. Don't worry about it. But _do_ worry about a power conduit down in C-19. It's not responding and I need you to head down there and fix it," Peter replied without looking up. Eric sighed. Since his superiors had learned that he had some basic technical knowledge, they had him running down little problems and doing routine maintenance that the tech guys couldn't be bothered with.

"Fine, then can I get to my regular duties?" Peter actually laughed.

"Good luck with that, Bishop." Eric suppressed another sigh, feeling that he was quickly using them up, turned and made his way towards the trams. A few moments later he found himself aboard another tram, riding over to an adjacent sector. He was almost alone, just another two men in their blue uniforms and shiny helmets, talking animatedly about what might be going on today. Eric found himself lulled back into contemplation.

Black Mesa had been good to him, so why did he want to leave? Was it a fear that he was growing too complacent? Or that maybe there was a shitload more to life that he was missing out on? He had to admit, he missed the women. There had been a lot of women before Black Mesa, some of them very serious. Maybe he could go visit his parents, take a vacation or something, do something to break the monotony and clear his head.

The tram came to a halt. Eric stepped out and located the ladder that would lead down to the maintenance area. He descended even deeper into the earth. He reached the bottom and looked around. The maintenance area was a dim concrete cavern. Numbers and letters had been painted on the walls, but they were long faded. There were a few gauges and power readouts set into the one of the walls. Three tunnels spread out from the main area.

Eric headed down C, eager to be done with this work. It wasn't that he didn't like doing the technical jobs, he liked working with his hands and it beat patrolling or standing around, waiting for something to happen, which nothing ever did. It was just that these tunnels were creepy. Very much so. Eric had grown up on a healthy diet of horror. Movies, books, games, they were all fair fodder for his consumption.

It was all too easy to envision some experiment gone wrong or a maniac with a knife waiting in the darker recesses of the tunnel for some poor bastard to come down here alone. And today the lighting was very bad. Some of them had gone out. Eric reached for his flashlight and then felt extremely stupid.

He had forgotten it. In rushing him and upsetting his regular morning routine, Peter had caused Eric to go without both a helmet _and _his flashlight. He growled in frustration and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloomy concrete corridor. Something sparked, throwing his vision off. Well, at least he knew where the junction box was. He disappeared into a side storage room for a moment, grabbing a tool kit off the wall, and began to make for the damaged power conduit.

He was nearly there when, abruptly, the entire tunnel shook as though a bomb had gone off. Eric felt a bolt of fear shoot through him. He glanced back. The lights were flickering madly. The tunnel shook again, worse this time, and didn't stop. Eric heard a horrible cracking noise overhead and glanced up.

He barely had time to rush back to the storage room and dive in as the cracked, ancient concrete ceiling began to collapse.


	2. Aftermath

_**Chapter 02  
**-Aftermath-_

Eric coughed violently as the dust finally began to settle. After the collapse, there had been no more aftershocks. At least, none that he could feel. His mind was racing as he struggled to see in the abysmal lighting of the storage room he'd thrown himself into. The light had gone out and what little of it there was was being offered through the cracks of the collapsed tunnel roof piled up against the door. Eric sat up and patted himself down, feeling for anything broken. After a moment he felt convinced that everything was intact, though he'd banged his elbows and knees pretty hard when he'd taken the dive. Slowly, he lurched to his feet.

The original burst of adrenaline was now simmering back down to a more manageable level. He left it there, his training allowing him to tap into it with some consistently, if need be. Eric checked his gear. His pistol was fine. Luck had it that his radio was, too. He breathed a sigh of relief and brought it up.

"This is Bishop down in maintenance. Someone want to tell me what the _hell_ is going on upstairs? I nearly got crushed in a cave in..." He paused. There was no response. He listened intently and heard nothing but dead air. He cursed briefly.

"I say again, this is Bishop. Is anyone there? Peter?" Nothing. Okay, so maybe it _had_ been damaged in the dive. He checked it over again, more carefully this time, but could find nothing actually wrong with the radio. Maybe something had been rattled inside. He considered taking it apart, then finally slipped it back into its pocket and decided he needed to be doing something more constructive. He studied the storage room.

The door was blocked, there was no way he was getting through that mess. The collapsed concrete was piled up beyond the top of the door frame and looked pretty solid. Even if he felt like clawing through the rubble, there was a good chance that it might come down on top of him and his survival would be for naught. He sighed and considered his other options. After looking around the room for several more moments, his eyes finally caught on a ventilation grate that had been rattled loose in the quake.

He grinned and crossed the room. Eric grabbed the grate and tore it out of its moorings. He tossed it aside, grabbed the edges of the shaft and hoisted himself up. It was a tight fit, but doable. Black Mesa had always been known for its large ventilation shafts. There were rumors of the security guards and even some of the more fit, younger scientists running bizarre marathons through the vent network.

Eric thought quietly to himself as he crawled to the vent. He felt focused and downright sharp. He felt clear headed, as if he'd just woken from a very long, very deep sleep, completely refreshed now. He found himself thinking about his disaster response priorities. Protect the facility and its equipment, then protect the eggheads, then, if he could manage it, protect himself. Yeah, the guys with the guns were always low priority. Eric hated that last one, how his own _life_ was a low priority to Black Mesa. He imagined Breen, the arrogant asshole, penning it himself with a nonchalant smirk on his face, almost as if it was somehow payback.

What was happening now was _real_. Eric felt it, like energy on the air right before a particularly powerful storm. Something had _happened_, and it was somehow very significant. His rational mind kept going back to other, more likely explanations: an earthquake, a bomb. Hell, even maybe a jet accidentally crashing into the surface. But he couldn't help but feel that today's big experiment was tied to...whatever it was had happened.

Eric was abruptly pulled out of his thoughts by two things. The first was the immediate realization that this ventilation shaft had gone on for a long time with no breaks. The second was a sound. A curious rustling, bubbling sound, almost like an insect blown up to unreasonable proportions. Eric twisted uncomfortably and glanced back. The lighting in the shaft was poor, but he could see, for the most part, an unbroken stretch of it behind him. He stared for several moments, but there were no more sounds and nothing to see.

He finally shifted back around again and kept going. There was light ahead, and he could just make out a shaft along the right hand side. Eric kept going. He wanted to be up and out of this place, not just because it was even freakier than usual, but because there were things happening, and they would likely need his help. Eric had seen a lot of crap over in Iraq, and he'd learned how to handle a lot of things normal people usually couldn't or wouldn't. Corpses didn't bother him nearly as much as they probably should.

How many people were hurt up there? Besides feeling a kind of duty to the people he worked with, he was also excited for the challenge it would present. It suddenly slid into place, as Eric came within reach of the grate, that his life had been devoid of challenge. That was the problem. He didn't have to genuinely struggle do to...well, anything, really. He began pushing the grate off and felt it give a little, but it was still mostly in place.

The sound, a curious gurgling rattle, was much closer this time. Eric glanced back and felt his heart leapt into his throat as he saw..._something_, shifting in the shadows further back. He began to pound on the grate and, abruptly, it gave. He glanced out of the hole he had made, saw he'd made it back to the tram platform and deposited himself neatly out and onto the ground. He tried to roll but wound up with a few more bruises. Eric quickly pulled himself to his feet, unlatched his pistol and pointed it towards the vent.

Eric trusted his senses. He worked out. He hit the shooting range. He kept his senses and instincts as honed as he could during the two years of rest. There had been something in that vent. He kept still, his stance ready, the pistol's safety off, pointing into the dark maw he had emerged from. For a long time, there was nothing. No ominous gurgling sound, nothing. Then faintly, very faintly, he heard rhythmic ticking. It faded away.

Eric breathed a small sigh of relief and holstered his pistol, but left the safety off. Eric was nothing if not a paranoid survivalist. While he had never taken it to crazy extremes, he did believe in being as honed and prepared, mentally and physically, as he could. For any eventuality. At the end of the day, he knew he could rely only on himself. He turned and walked over to the ladder that would take him back up. He ascended, found the tram station empty, then walked to the edge of the platform. He hit the call button.

It didn't light up, indicating that a tram was on the way. He frowned and waited a few seconds, then hit it again. Nothing. It was dead and dark. A thought suddenly struck Eric and he leaned cautiously over the railing, peering down into the abyss that the trams always seemed to ride over. And there, at the bottom, very distantly, he spied a tram crashed among the distant ground. He sighed, very softly, and leaned back up.

So...no trams. Eric was vaguely familiar with this region of the facility. There area was crisscrossed with all manner of maintenance shafts and service tunnels. Above him...he glanced up, working his memory. Above him was some kind of recreational area that he sometimes went to. There was a burger joint, a taco place, a pool, a laundromat...maybe some other things. But not far beyond _those_ was his beloved security center. If he could get there, he could figure out what had gone wrong. Hopefully.

Eric walked back to the ladder he'd just ascended. It didn't go only down. It could take him up. He popped his knuckles and began climbing.

* * *

Eric was a little tired by the time he emerged. He hadn't expected the ladder to go on that long and, well, if he was being completely honest with himself, maybe he had lapsed a little bit over these past few months. No more of that. He pushed the hatch over the tunnel up and aside and peered around cautiously.

A broad, concrete plateau awaited his inspection. Up against the far wall were the two restaurants he remembered. Set in between them was a door to a stairwell. The plateau was littered with tables and chairs. High overhead, powerful sun lights, meant to imitate sunshine, still burned. Though a few of them did flicker. The area was suspiciously empty. Eric supposed that it would be a low traffic time, but there should've been _someone_ manning the joint. He finally shrugged and pulled himself up the rest of the way.

Chances were they'd run off to somewhere important, probably the security center. Eric relaxed a little. He wanted to go straight on to security, but...maybe someone had been hurt? Eric began making his way towards the burger place. He'd eaten there a few times. They made good burgers and fries, but always seemed to be out of ketchup, with an overabundance of mustard and mayo. He pushed his way behind the counter of the open-faced restaurant, then began poking around. There really wasn't much to the place.

A kitchen in the back, a storage room, a walk-in freezer, a break room. All of them were empty. All of them had an ominous feel of abrupt abandonment. Even the gas oven was still on. A skillet with a few burnt patties had been flipped over onto the ground. The flame flickered. As Eric turned the knob off, he was abruptly stricken by the crazy idea that maybe he was the last one left alive. That maybe everyone had been zapped away into nothingness by whatever experiment had gone wrong. He swallowed nervously.

It couldn't be true...could it? Eric knew the world. Knew likelihoods and probabilities. But how much did he know about the science the United States government was getting up to, down here in the brilliantly lit concrete bunkers and old missile silos? He knew nothing at all, really. Suddenly, anything seemed possible. Eric grasped for his radio. He brought it up.

"This is Bishop to anyone, anyone at all. Can you hear me?"

He was impressed by how little his voice gave away. It had hardly wavered at all. But there was nothing and no one on the radio. Not even the ghostly whisper of static. Just dead air and cold silence. Eric tried again, twice more, then replaced the radio, leaving it on.

What had happened up there? Did they have a nuclear war? He shook his head, trying to clear it. He needed to keep calm. Eric left the burger joint and came over to the taco stand. It had been his favorite. He'd always had a deep appreciation for Americanized Mexican food. Heavily seasoned ground beef and thickly shredded cheese and loads of hot sauce. Burritos and tacos, he absolutely loved them. The taco stand had been similarly abandoned, though there was a bit more of a mess. Whatever it was had knocked a great deal off the shelves.

Eric sighed softly. He took one more look around the area, then made himself go up to the door set into the wall in between the two eateries. Nothing here for him. He found his hand hovering over his pistol as he ascended the stairwell. Eric tried to make himself relax, but when he opened the door at the top and found the room beyond, an arcade, a flickering nightmare, his body kicked a load of adrenaline into his system again.

The arcade lights had gone out, but the machines had stayed on, turning the area into a madly strobing horror that morphed the shadows into creeping creatures from beyond the stars. Eric waited, his hand trembling in anticipation, as he waited for his eyes to adjust and see if there was actually anything in the arcade, or if it was all just smoke and mirrors. As he stood there waiting, something immediately to his right moaned wickedly and crashed into him.


	3. Not Alone

_**Chapter 03  
**-Not Alone-_

It wasn't human.

No, that wasn't right. It had clearly once been human in the immediate past. Eric crashed to the floor, the arcade machines pulsing malignant light as it crept closer towards him, arms outstretched like a Frankenstein monster of old. Bishop had a wild thought that this..._creature_, lumbering towards him as the lay there frozen on the ground, would give even Frankenstein a pause. He stared at it in fascinated horror.

It had obviously once been a security guard. The tattered vest and blue uniform bore testament to this fact. Only something had...attached itself to the man's face. No, his _entire head_. It consumed the whole head, some kind creature with pallid flesh. Horrifically, a vague outline of eye sockets were visible through the taut skin. The man's arms seemed longer now, and ended in wicked, lengthy claws glistening with fresh blood. And, most interesting of all, the chest. It had split open, from neck to navel, and the sides had grown teeth.

The thing, the...Eric's mind fumbled for a word and finally latched onto Zombie, stumbled towards him, growling madly. As it crossed the threshold to within arm's reach, something snapped back online in Eric's head. He tore his pistol free from its leather holster, brought it up and squeezed the trigger. There was a soft _click_ and the trigger wouldn't pull all the way. Somehow, the safety had re-caught itself.

Eric cried out and rolled frantically away from the monster as he fumbled with the pistol. Adrenaline leant him speed and strength, but this living nightmare was giving him an overdose. He was jittery with terror. He flipped the catch and sat up, facing the monster, which was coming for him again. He aimed and fired.

The first bullet took a chunk of flesh off what the Zombie's head had become. The second went wild, striking the ceiling in a brief spray of sparks. The third hit dead on, plowing through the pale skin of the creature's new face and exploding out the back in a visceral eruption of blood and brains. The Zombie immediately collapsed to the ground. Eric let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.

Suddenly, from around him, the shadows seemed to birth more of them. Two, three, four...Eric bolted to his feet and ran. He could see the exit ahead. It was open and though the light on the other side was a little dim, it was there, like a beacon in the night. Something swiped at him as he ran past a clutch of arcade consoles and he smelled as much as felt the whoosh of air. These things reeked, he realized suddenly.

They reeked of the dead. Of rotting meat. He burst through the door into the gray light, saw there was nothing ahead of him but a pool and spun around on his heel. He raised the pistol, his aim steadying out. Okay, he could do this. The bout of mind-numbing, abject terror had passed and he was back in control.

"Come and get it, bastards," he snarled. The first Zombie emerged, growling and lumbering, from the doorway. Eric squeezed the trigger. The bullet went in and the gore came out. Even as it collapsed to the ground, clutching at nothing reflexively, the next came out into the light. Eric fired again.

In the end, he traded nearly a whole clip for a pile of six corpses. Eric automatically reached for his pocket, for another clip, but then remembered he hadn't had a chance to pick any up. He swallowed nervously and glanced around. He was still alone. If there were anymore in the arcade, they had learned their lesson and were hanging back. Eric took a step forward and realized he couldn't make himself go back in there.

But one thing he _could_ do was study the corpses. They were inert now, nothing but cold and now dead flesh. Cautiously he approached and stood over the nearest one, which had made it a little bit farther than the others. He nudged the head with his foot, prepared to pump the remainder of his bullets in it if it moved. It _did_ move, but in a dead kind of way. Whatever had attached itself to the head fell off, rolling limply to the ground.

Eric crouched after a moment and poked at it with the barrel of his gun. Whatever it was, it seemed to be a body supported by four legs, one at each corner. How did this little thing attach itself to a man's head? There was a mouth on the bottom, with teeth, but...Eric suddenly was stricken with the notion that one of these things had been in the vent with him. He stared at the legs and decided that the odd ticking sound he'd heard after he'd gotten out of there would match up with the sound of one of these things walking in a vent.

He jerked to his feet, wanting now more than ever to regroup with his fellow security guards. If only he could find one other person, he'd feel better. With that thought in mind, he turned and surveyed the area. It was a pool, a big one, Olympic-sized, if he wasn't mistaken. It came complete with a diving board and a couple of hot tubs and steam rooms off to the side. It was ringed by slick white tile and beach chairs with big umbrellas.

It would have been a serene scene, maybe a little eerie, what with being abandoned and all, except that the three corpses floating in the water, back-up, made the scene downright nasty. Blood had leaked out of them and into the pool. Eric decided it was high time to move on. After making doubly sure he was alone, he extracted the clip in his pistol and studied it. Three bullets left. Wonderful. Getting more would be a priority.

A thought occurred to him and he stopped and slowly turned. Most of those corpses he'd made were scientists or technicians, but...one of them had been a security guard. And so had the one he'd put down back in the arcade. With a soft, resigned sigh, Eric made his way back to the bodies and began shoving them aside.

The blood stank, and not the coppery reek of normal blood, either. He finally found the corpse of the guard and patted down his pockets. The man's pistol was missing, but, as luck would have it, he did have one full clip on him. Eric replaced it with his own and kept the three bullets. He had a feeling that he'd need every bullet he could get his hands on. Eric stood then and crossed the pool, pushing through the door at the far end.

He came into a laundromat. It was obvious that a nightmare of a shootout had gone on. Eric was surprised that he hadn't heard it. Bullets had punched through the large window panes that, for some reason, looked out over the yawning abyss, fracturing and sometimes shattering the glass. Same with the dryers, which all had little windows so that you could look in and see your clothes. There was blood on the floor, bodies too.

Eric saw that the place was empty, no Zombies here, no...he had a name for the Zombies, so why not for the little monsters? They kind of looked like crabs, well, maybe not...why did they remind him of crabs? He was patting down his third corpse when it hit him. Alien. They reminded him of that movie, or rather, those movies. The trilogy. Alien, Aliens and Alien 3. He refused to acknowledge any of the films that had followed.

Facehuggers? Only they didn't _just_ hug your face. They seemed to envelope your whole head. And the Facehuggers looked like horseshoe crabs...Headcrabs. The word slammed together in a moment of inspiration. Eric grinned despite himself. Naming things. It was something he felt he could _do_, when so much of the world had suddenly been hurled into screaming chaos. Out of all the bodies he searched, he only managed a single clip.

At least it was full. He was just leaving when something caught his eye. A radio, discarded in a pool of blood. He recovered it, wiping as much of the blood as he could on the back of a nearby scientist. He turned it on. The light lit up. Elation stabbed at him as he began speaking into it, calling out for anyone who might still be alive. But that elation quickly died as he received the same empty silence as before.

With a quiet sigh, Eric abandoned the radio, figuring that his must be working after all. And if he was working, then that meant that none of them were working correctly. He shouldered the door open, pistol held in both hands now. He wasn't far. There was an elevator just up the way that led to the security center. All he had to do was take it up. He crossed another tram platform and, for the hell of it, tried the call button again. Nothing. It was still dead. He'd figured as much. Eric turned and walked up to the elevator.

He pushed the button and waited, looking around. There were a few bullet holes in the walls and a spray of blood, but otherwise the platform was basically intact. He found his mind wandering as he waited for the elevator to come. Where had these Headcrabs come from and how had they gotten all over the facility so _fast_? It was clear to Eric now that this must have something to do with the big experiment today.

But what was that experiment? Were these things manmade? Or were they aliens of some sort? Eric realized, abruptly, that the elevator hadn't come. And, what was worse, he didn't hear anything. With a quiet sigh, he looked around. There was a toolkit on the wall, meant for basic repairs. He tore it off its hinges and opened it up. After a moment of rooting around, Eric came up with a pretty sturdy looking box-cutter.

Why it was in there, he wasn't sure, but it would do. He flicked it up and drove the blade between the doors of the elevator. Working hard, he began to wedge the doors open. After a moments of effort, they finally gave. Abandoning the cutter, he slipped his fingers into the crack and pulled them open the rest of the way. Carefully, he peered up the shaft, then down it. There was nothing up there, but there was a crashed lift at the bottom of the shaft, ten meters down. He stood back from the door and rubbed the back of his neck.

No breaks today, huh? Eric spied another maintenance shaft nearby. With a resigned groan, he began climbing. After another five minutes, he managed to make it to the top and stepped out happily into the small storage area the shaft led to. He closed the hatch behind him and tried to open the only door.

It didn't budge.

"Oh, come _on_!" Eric cried, pounding a fist against the unyielding steel frame. He spent several moments fiddling with the door, but it was firmly closed and probably locked. Looking around, Eric had deja vu as he spied a vent grate. With a sigh, he grabbed a screwdriver from off a cluttered shelf and unscrewed the grate.

He hauled himself up with a grunt of effort. Well, at least there was nothing standing between him and the security center now. Just a few twists and turns and he'd be there. He crawled on his belly through the ventilation system, focusing on getting out of it as quickly as possible. Eric could handle enclosed spaces, but that didn't mean he liked them. And with the Zombies and all...his nerves were a little frayed at this point.

It hit him that he couldn't hear anything. No voices. No movement. Well, hopefully that just meant-something wandered into view directly ahead of him from a side vent. A Headcrab. Eric's heart leapt into his throat and his guts turned to frozen stone. The thing hadn't taken notice of him...not yet. His gun was still in hand. He swallowed and gently began turning it to face the little bastard. Almost as soon as he did the Headcrab made a sharp gurgling noise and began turning to face him. Eric squeezed the trigger three times.

The first two shots went wild, the third nailed the thing dead on and sent a spray of yellowish blood everywhere. Eric found it interesting, as he crawled over the stinking corpse, that the ones attached to heads didn't produce yellow blood. Maybe they took Human blood into their bodies. It didn't really matter.

Eric found a grate and decided it was high time to leave the vents. He pounded on it for a little while until it finally came loose. He poked his head out and looked around. He'd come into a tiny office that looked mostly undisturbed. Carefully, he lowered himself. Okay. He was in security now. He felt a lot better. Now, he could get some back up, grab a flashlight and maybe a helmet, and definitely grab a bigger arsenal.

He opened the door and stepped out.

And froze.

Security was a bloody mess, and he could see no survivors.


	4. Entering Desolation

_**Chapter 04  
**-Entering Desolation-_

Eric stood in that hallway for a long time. He stared at the blood on the walls. He stared at the lonely, headless corpse that had once been a security guard. The man hadn't even put on his flak jacket. Eric knew he was at the far end of the security center. A tiny office complex where a handful of security personnel did the clerical tasks of scheduling, payments and all manner of miscellaneous reports. Eric knew he should get moving, search the area, make for damn sure that there was nothing left and no one alive.

But he found it difficult to move. The thought, the notion, the downright _certainty _that security would be well-fortified and defended had lodged in his brain. And now it had been broken. What would he do now? Where would he go? How could he possibly hope to survive this alone if the entire security center couldn't hope to stand up to it?

Something seemed to spark in his head, something that kicked him into action. Almost without thinking about it, he began searching the half dozen offices. Hunting for signs of life or supplies, something to add to his meager inventory and up his chances of survival. But the offices were all empty, portraits of abrupt abandonment. A spilled mug of coffee. A half-eaten doughnut. A form half filled out on a monitor.

Eric left the offices behind, feeling a coal of sullen, bleak despair settling into the pit of soul as he came to the central room. He had been standing here earlier this morning. He looked at the desk where Peter had hurriedly handed him his Glock and laughed bitterly at his request to get back to normal work.

_Normal work_...there was nothing normal in Black Mesa anymore. That fact was hammered home to him as he stared across the blood-slicked lobby. What had once been a bustling terminal of activity was now a fresh necropolis. A slaughterhouse. That same thing as before, instincts or training perhaps, kicked Eric into action. The armory. He needed to get to the armory. Security was divided up into sections.

Each corridor branching off from the central area led to one of these areas. Offices, armory and shooting range, infirmary, break room, showers and locker room, security monitoring. Eric picked out the armory corridor and stalked slowly down it. Spent shell casings carpeted the floor. Overhead, one of the light fixtures periodically spat sparks. The corridor ended in a split, one way leading to the armory, another to the shooting range.

He broke left, making for the armory. The door wasn't closed all the way and as he drew closer, he saw why: someone's arm was stuck in it on the floor. The door kept trying to close. The scene was, in its own way, darkly humorous. The door fully opened as Eric approached. His heart sank as he stepped inside and looked around. Whatever had happened, the security personnel, those who had fought back, had raided the armory.

After a moment of staring in lonely silence, something finally caught his eye. It was higher up, on one of the shelves. Something black peeking from just over the edge. Eric walked forward, reached up and grabbed it. He felt a jolt of reassurance as he realized what it was. A shotgun. An honest-to-God shotgun. Besides the pistols, the Black Mesa Security Force personnel were issued Spas-12, twelve gauge shotguns.

Eric checked it out and frowned. It was empty. No shells. He spent five minutes hunting through the armory and only managed to turn up a shoulder-strap, which he attached to the shotgun and let hang with the strap over his right shoulder, and another clip for his pistol. All the while, he found himself wondering how it could be so thoroughly cleared out. He then realized that every security guard was issued a pistol and two clips. So that accounted for a great deal of the stock. And how many had been left behind when the invasion happened?

Eric felt something like hope again as he realized _someone_, or a few someones, must've made it past the initial invasion and raided the armory. So where were they? They must have gone deeper into the facility. A thought struck Eric and he fished out his nearly-depleted original clip, then transferred the three bullets left into his current clip, bringing it back up to full. He discarded the empty clip and made for the shooting range.

Just as he expected, it was empty. It looked like the battle hadn't reached this place. There were no spare guns or bullets in the booths. He went back to the main lobby and froze. A Zombie had stumbled in while he'd been gone. He raised the pistol and fired twice. Both bullets took it high, once in the head, once in the neck, and the monster went down hard with a gurgling groan. Eric waited, but no more came.

He decided the infirmary needed a good checking out next. He moved down the corridor and through the door at the end, trying not to think of how many times he'd walked these halls in the past two years. The place was empty and a mess. As he began piecing together medical supplies, he found himself relieved that he still had it in him. Eric had shot men before. He'd killed when they'd sent him to Iraq. He'd had to. They would have killed him if he hadn't. At this point in his life, he was a lot calmer than he'd been before.

And while he had kept up going to the shooting range three times a week, he hadn't been in a combat situation once during his stay at Black Mesa. Part of him had been wondering if he could handle such a situation again. And now he knew he could. He could shoot, he could put someone down. Especially if that someone was no longer a some_one_ and more of a some_thing_. Eric managed to put together a full medical kit from the supplies scattered across the bloodied infirmary. He left and moved on, heading for the break room.

As Eric stepped into the little break room, which wasn't more than a handful of vaguely comfortable couches, a few coffee tables and a counter that sported a water cooler, sink, a pair of mini-fridges and a couple of coffee makers, the despair hit him again. This time it had teeth. It was good that the room was empty because he sank down onto one of the couches almost against his will. What if he was the last man left alive?

The thought seemed a little ridiculous, but with so little knowledge about the situation around him, he found it startlingly believable. What if he was all alone with these monsters? Did he have even a glimmer of hope? Could he survive this catastrophe? Eric sighed heavily, staring at the pistol in his hands. He had to try, at least. He couldn't just give up. At the very least he could shoot for getting up and out of Black Mesa.

Slowly, he stood up. Eric popped his shoulders, his back, his neck. He'd felt like this once before, in the night following his first real combat situation when there had been a raid on his base. They'd repelled it and only two men had been shot, and they survived, but it had shaken him. He'd gotten over it, after a few days. He realized now that he needed to get over it and fast. Because these things wouldn't wait for him to feel better.

Eric went back out into the central lobby and headed for the final area: security monitoring. He put down another Zombie on the way there and entered. The room was lit by a couple of dozen screens. Two walls were taken up entirely by banks of monitors. Most of them were stricken with a harsh sheen of static, some were completely dead. Others still worked, maybe a quarter of them, and they all showed a different scene.

Eric studied them. He saw a bloodied corridor with a pair of Zombies milling around mindlessly. In a shiny white laboratory, windows were broken out and the floors were stained with blood. There was a trail of it, leading from one side of the screen to the other. Someone had dragged themselves quite a ways. A third camera showed an isolated tram shaft, empty save for pale yellow light and bare concrete walls.

He studied them all for several moments, but found nothing to suggest survivors. Pushing aside the growing fear to the best of his abilities, Eric played with the controls for a little while. Finally, he was satisfied that he'd seen all the cameras had to offer and turned to study a map of the area attached to the wall behind him. He mentally crossed out all the places he had been and looked ahead, trying to figure out a route to somewhere that mattered.

The trams and elevators seemed to be out. That just left ventilation shafts and maintenance tunnels. Eric didn't relish the thought of moving through more vent ducts. He realized that there was a radio room not too far away from the security center. Under normal circumstances, he could've been there in a few minutes. Unfortunately...it looked like he was going to have to take a maintenance shaft down to a waste disposal facility.

Eric studied the map for a few minutes more, hoping against hope that there was some way around waste disposal. But the trams were out. There wasn't. He memorized the route and turned away, making for the maintenance hatch.

The day just kept getting better.


	5. Waste Disposal

_**Chapter 05  
**-Waste Disposal-_

Keep moving. Just keep moving. Eric told himself it was all he had to do. The ladder went down quite a ways, possibly the longest one yet. It was when he reached the bottom of it that he noticed something strange. He'd come into a large, open room where the floor was mostly catwalk made of cheap grating. Everything had a wet, rusted feel. Pipes ranging in size from slender to something out of the old Mario games fed into and out of the walls, ceiling and floor. A river of what smelled like sewage ran ten feet below his feet.

The area around hatch was a little more sturdy, a concrete platform up against the walls. One of the walls was dominated by readout screens and gauges. There was a body. A technician. Eric almost passed the corpse off but then he caught a whiff of something very distinctive: burnt meant. He turned and walked over to the corpse. It was lying on its stomach. He nudged it with his boot and flipped it over onto its back.

That's when he finally saw it. There was a hole burned into the man's chest, through his clothes, his skin, even halfway through his ribcage. It was all melted and burnt very thoroughly. Eric glanced up and noticed a pair of scorch marks on the wall behind where the man would've been standing. What caused this? Some kind of electrical discharge? He stared at the bank of machinery. It all looked intact, not wrecked from such a discharge.

So what then? Eric looked around for another few minutes, his eyes continually returning to the charred body. The smell was starting to get to him. It, mixed with the thick reek of sewage, was making him gag. He left the body, but not the mystery, behind. It kept being turned over in his mind, examined from different angles as he crossed the rickety catwalks. They creaked and groaned, but held. Eric had spent a lot of time in places like this. More so than he cared to admit after they'd start given him oddjobs meant for techs.

It seemed to him that ninety nine percent of the government funding had gone to the labs and the research. Whatever was leftover went towards food, supplies for the non-scientists and, when they could be bothered, upkeep and basic maintenance on the facility itself. He sighed a bit in relief when he came to the adjacent concrete platform. He stepped through the only door in the area. The next room housed huge tanks of what Eric imagined belonged to waste processing. Either a storage or cleansing area.

There were eight of them, huge, bulbous steel shells, four to either side. The lighting was bad, and in between each was a deep nest of shadows. Eric swallowed nervously as he began to make for the door on the far side. He'd gone maybe halfway when something growled, a warning sound, to his left. He spun, raised his pistol. A Zombie, a former technician, stumbled into the dim light. It groaned hauntingly as it came for him.

Even as Eric squeezed the trigger, another groan sounded behind him, and then another, farther up the room. He put two bullets into the head of the Zombie and spun. _Three_ more were making for him from different directions. He swallowed and began backing up, tracking the first Zombie. He really wished he'd had some shotgun shells right about then. He began firing, keeping his hands as steady as he could while the horrors advanced upon him, groaning and growling with inhuman rancor. He wondered what they wanted from him.

He managed to put down the first two, but the third got close enough to take a swipe at him. The lengthy red claws cut into his flak jacket. He finished off the final Zombie and hastily reloaded. He could still feel the pressure of the attack on his chest. He prodded the jacket experimentally and was unnerved to discover the cuts had run deep. If the thing had been any closer, it might very well have cut straight through to the flesh.

He shook off the fear and pressed on. He just needed to get through the waste disposal area and that'd be that. Eric tried to calm himself. These things, the Zombies and the Headcrabs, they were ugly and dangerous, sure, but at least he _knew_ he could kill them. And without too much effort, too. They were slow, well, the Zombies were at least. He still didn't know exactly how the Headcrabs operated. If Black Mesa had been invaded by these things, well, that sucked, but at least he could handle it. So long as he found more bullets.

Yes, he'd definitely need more bullets. He only had two clips left. He opened the door and stepped into the room beyond. It was big, housing a pair of titanic steel drums to his right. There was just a blank wall to the left and a ramp directly ahead of him. If he had his map right, this would lead to a service lift that he was praying would still be active. No maintenance shafts led directly to the radio facility.

Something up ahead, beyond the ramp, made a sound. Eric froze. It wasn't a sound he was familiar with. It was a high-pitched chirping noise. Eric licked his lips in nervous anticipation. He raised his pistol and slowly began to make his way up. Before he could even make it half a dozen steps, something came bounding over the edge of the ramp and down to him. Eric began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped.

He stared in absolute incomprehension. This thing...it was small. And moved like a dog. It almost _looked_ like one, or maybe a twisted, alien version of a dog. It seemed to be missing a back leg, giving it the look of a tripod, and it was furless. Its back was ridged and it was covered in a yellow-green pattern, with a blue streak down the middle of its back. Most striking of all was its face...if it could be called such a thing.

Instead of a traditional face, it seemed to have nothing but a broad expanse of completely black eyes, all bunched up together. The thing came within arm's length of him and began to vibrate. A high-pitched whining sound, like something gearing up, emanated from it. Eric had just enough time to snap out of his surprise and realize his mistake when the dog-thing abruptly jolted and he was picked up and thrown across the room.

He hit the ground and rolled several times, the breath driven from his lungs. Somehow, he managed to hold onto his pistol. He came to a rest on his side, groaning and wheezing, gasping for breath. The thing was coming for him again. Eric raised his pistol and steadied his hands. He squeezed the trigger. Three of the shots went wild as it approached. The fourth finally took it dead center of the 'face'. The thing immediately collapsed and was still. Eric wasted several more minutes getting his breath back, kicking himself mentally.

How could he be so stupid?! He should've dropped that thing the second it entered his field of vision. Only he hadn't been anywhere _near_ prepared for it. What the hell _was_ it!? Eric slowly sat up, continually looking around. Whatever it had been, it was alone. He could hear nothing in the chamber with him. Eric began to move forward, but stopped suddenly. No, he needed to think about this. This was genuinely important.

The Headcrabs and the Zombies, they made a kind of sense. They were each related to the other. But this dog-thing...it didn't even remotely fit into the Headcrab/Zombie life cycle. Well, except for...he glanced at the body again. It was bleeding the same colored blood as the Headcrabs. But that could mean anything. So probably it wasn't related. But what did that _mean_!? If this thing was out there, he stared down at the body, which was slowly producing a puddle of ugly yellow blood...then that meant that there could be _anything_ out there.

Eric swallowed, his hands trembling slightly. What nightmares awaited him in the forsaken depths of Black Mesa? Just what exactly had those scientists done? He could imagine any number of monsters. What if he came across something that couldn't be killed? He shook his head, derailing that particular train of thought. If he didn't get moving, something would no doubt come across him and jump him.

He tightened his grip on the pistol, ascending the ramp. No more being taken by surprise. Eric knew that he needed to sharpen up and _fast_. He came to the top of the ramp and surveyed the area. Another broad, open concrete floor. More monitoring equipment along the walls. Two corridors leading away, one on either side, and a large, solid looking door that he was pretty sure was the way out. There were signs of conflict: spent shell casings, more curious burn marks on the walls and a pair of bodies. A tech and a security guard.

Eric moved closer and knelt by the guard. He began patting the man's pockets down and chuckled grimly as he found a small stash of shotgun shells. He began feeding the fat red shells into the slide and only managed five of them. Well, five was better than none. He left the shotgun hanging still. It'd make a good backup weapon. Eric was so happy with his find that he nearly overlooked a much more important one.

The technician was still alive. He was breathing, but shallowly. Eric broke out the medical kit and began checking the man over. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties. Scrawny and pale with limp black hair and a freshly shaven face. A few moments later, Eric felt vaguely convinced that the kid didn't have any broken bones or serious injuries. He pulled out wake-up stimulant and injected a bit into one of the kid's major veins.

No time to do this gently, Eric thought. The kid gasped awake.

"Relax, relax...I'm a friend. Here to help," Eric said. The tech's eyes were bugged and flicking every which way, but after a few seconds he took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing slightly.

"What happened?" he asked, sitting up.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Eric replied. The tech seemed to look at him for the first time now. Finally, he shook his head.

"You aren't one of the men who was with me...where'd you come from?" Eric helped the tech to his feet and gave him a quick rundown of his situation so far. The tech seemed to be fully awake and aware by the time he finished.

"And you?" Eric asked.

"Name's Steven Watts. I was down here when it all happened. I thought it was an earthquake. I thought..." he groaned suddenly and rubbed his head. "Goddamn...I wandered around for a little while. Truth be told, I was kinda nervous. I had been hearing all this shit lately about experiments...I wasn't sure I wanted to see what was up there. But, while I was making up my mind, these three guards come down all decked out in guns and gear. They told me that we had to go and now. So I started following them...

"We didn't get far, though. Got ambushed by a whole pack of Houndeyes." Eric held up his hand.

"Houndeyes?"

"They're these dogs, I think they shoot out waves of sound directly from their bodies..."

"Yeah, I ran into one. But who named them Houndeyes?"

"I dunno. I heard one of the guards say it. It seemed to fit. We fought off the first group, and he was talking about how he'd seen these things before, down in the labs. I think he was Level Four security. You know, high up? Said he'd seen other things in the labs, too. Then we got ambushed by even more of them. I got nailed by one, well, we all did. I was thrown across the room and blacked out...then you were waking me up. I thought you were one of the guards but I guess they figured I was dead or maybe they panicked and ran."

Eric was silent for a while, considering the situation. Finally, he began speaking again.

"So you're good at your job? You know a lot about the facility? The technical aspects of it?" he asked.

"Yeah...why?"

"I need you to come with me then."

"I dunno...I mean, where are you going to go?"

"There's a radio room not far from here."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to just wait down here? Surely there are people taking care of this situation. They'll be looking for survivors..."

"You haven't seen how bad it is up there, Steven...and even so, they'd find us a lot faster if they knew where we were. That's why I'm going for the radio room. And what if it's broken? I might need your help to fix it. And besides, I can protect you." Steven still seemed to be waffling. "I'm going with or without you," Eric added.

That decided him.

"Alright, fine. But I want your pistol." Eric shook his head. "Why not? You've got that shotgun..."

"This shotgun has only five shells. The pistol's got a couple of clips left. And besides, how good are you at shooting?" Steven looked sheepish.

"Not very, honestly. I mean, I've been to the shooting range a few times. But I guess you're right. I'm not very good with a gun."

"I'll get you one once I find another...if you promise not to shoot me."

"I promise to try as hard as I can." Eric sighed and supposed it would have to do. He turned and walked up to the large door that stood between him and a means out of the waste disposal facility. He looked around for a moment, then spotted a large button that was obviously meant to open the door. He pressed it. Nothing happened.

"Oh...wonderful," he muttered. "Congratulations, Steve, you've got your first job...what's wrong with this thing?" Steven looked around and discovered a small alcove with a lot of monitoring equipment shoved into it. He walked over and began accessing it. After several moments, he finally had it figured out.

"Looks like a few storage tanks in the next room were ruptured and the primary drains didn't engage. So we need to go and find the switch to turn on the secondary drains. It should be..." He consulted the monitor in front of him again for another moment. "Down the right corridor. At the end," he explained.

"Alright, let's go."

It felt good to have another person with him, even if he preferred a security guard. Eric had been a bit of a recluse for most of his life. He never felt very good in social situations and while he'd learned how to talk women into his bed after becoming a Marine, it was as close to social interaction as he got. He didn't really like people. He often saw the worst in them and regarded most of the rest of society as idiots. Not that he was a genius, but they always seemed to be worshiping the _stupidest_ shit. Like some lame pop singer or a movie that was little more than a very basic idea wrapped in layers of CGI or a horribly written teen paranormal romance novel. People always raved about how great these things were, never seeing them for the shit they actually were.

There was more to it, obviously. Eric had met a lot of petty people in his life. A lot of liars, thieves, arrogant jerk-offs, cowards...he'd decided pretty early on that he didn't really want anything to do with society as a whole. Of course, that couldn't really hold up. And now, deep beneath the earth, he was as happy as he'd ever been to see another human face. Having Steven around brightened his mood considerably.

"Here it is," Steven said after he and Eric had gone most of the length of the concrete corridor. Eric stood guard while Steven worked the controls. Distantly, there was a sharp _click_, followed by a deep humming.

"And that's it," he said, brushing his hands together. "We should be able to get to the elevator that leads to the radio facility."

They made their way back down the corridor and opened the door. The place reeked of sewage and something worse, but it was clear at least. They moved through the room to another, smaller room at the back. Eric crossed his fingers and hit the call button. They waited. When enough time had passed, Eric forced the doors open and glanced down. Not ten feet below him was a crashed elevator. He heaved a sigh.

"Shit...now what?" he muttered. Steven craned his neck, staring down at the wreckage.

"I know this area kinda well...there's another way to the radio station. There's a maintenance shaft not far from here that leads up a medical wing."

"Alright then...let's get going."


	6. Route Bypass

_**Chapter 06  
**-Route Bypass-_

Ladders. Eric's day was becoming all about ladders. Well, that and Zombies. But it felt good to have another person with him. The sounds of Steven's huffing and puffing were reassuring. The man was several feet below Eric on the ladder. He almost regretted not making Steven go first, in case he should lose his grip and fall. Eric felt confident enough that he could catch and hold the kid without losing his own grip. But he had to be the first one up, to take a look-see. There could be anything loose in the medical wing, anything at all.

He was nearing the maintenance hatch now. Eric found his thoughts returning to the Houndeye. He kept trying to think up a scenario that would explain it all, but it just wouldn't come. He reached the top of the shaft and began twisting the hatch.

"Are we there?" Steven asked below him, out of breath.

"Yeah...just a minute," Eric replied. He finally wretched it free and pushed it open. Peering cautiously over the rim, he spied another storage room. It was empty save for some shelving units pressed up against the walls. Eric climbed up and then turned and offered Steven a helping hand. Once he had the tech up and out, he closed and secured the hatch behind them. He wasn't sure if Zombies could climb ladders, but he didn't want to take any chances. Not far away, Eric could hear the telltale groans of the Zombies.

He and Steven wasted a few minutes searching the room for anything useful, but it was all just random medical equipment that Eric had no use for. Ready to face whatever lay behind the door, Eric opened it. He was admitted to a lengthy corridor bathed in blood and flickering light. It ended abruptly to his left but to his right it stretched away from him, leading deeper into the medical complex. Half a dozen Zombies, a handful of Headcrabs and _something_ stuck to the ceiling all awaited him. The Zombies and Headcrabs began to advance on him.

Steven cried out in shock and surprise and retreated back into the room. Eric snapped his pistol up and began opening fire. He focused on the Zombies, felling two of them before he learned the terrible secret of the Headcrabs. One of them came within some predetermined distance and, abruptly, leapt for him. He made a small noise of surprise and ducked it. It hit the wall behind him and he hoped it was down for the count.

So _that_ was how they attached to people's heads. He slotted the next Zombie for extermination and squeezed the trigger, but the shot went wild as he was forced to duck another one of the bastards. He heard a warning growl from behind him. He glanced back. Those two Headcrabs were still alive! He spun and fired twice in rapid succession, putting them both down in plumes of yellow blood. When he turned back, the nearest Zombie was almost upon him. Eric quickly realized that this was not going well.

He opened fire and barely managed to put the Zombie down before it reached him. He still had three more. They were getting closer. He began squeezing the trigger, sweating now, trying to put them down. Then the trigger clicked. His clip was dry. Eric pulled out one of his last clips and felt his heart miss a beat as it slipped from his grasp.

"Oh...shit," he muttered.

Very suddenly, without warning, the head of the rear-most Zombie erupted in a plume of red gore. Eric caught sight of someone in a white lab coat. He abandoned his efforts with the pistol, dropping it to clatter uselessly to the floor, and grabbed his own shotgun. He aimed and fired, blasting the nearest Zombie clean off its feet. He killed the last one and the mystery man blew away the remaining Headcrab.

Eric and the man, who wore glasses and had a head of thinning hair, stared at each other from across a sea of death and decay.

"Who're you?" the man asked.

"Eric Bishop. You?"

"Allan Thompson..." His eyes glanced up at the thing Eric had noticed before. It was like a mound of dark flesh, clinging somehow to the ceiling, and a long fleshy rope, like a tongue, descended from it, nearly touching the floor. Allan raised his shotgun and fired. It exploded with a shriek in a spray of dark gore.

"Barnacle," he said, as if that explained everything. What might have been guts dripped from the ceiling to pool and mingle with the corpses.

"I've got someone else with me. A technician. You cool with that shotgun?" he asked. Allan nodded. "Steven, come on out, it's over." The door opened and Steven cautiously poked his head out. He stared down the way at Allan.

"Oh thank God, another survivor," he muttered, coming out all the way. He stared down at the Zombies. "God, what _are_ these things?" he whispered harshly.

"I might be able to help explain that...come on, I've got a somewhat secure location set up," Allan said, motioning for them to join him. The pair stepped cautiously over the corpses and joined Allan on the other side. He led them to a nearby doorway, which opened to reveal a small medical facility. The far wall was taken up by a row of examination tables. Cabinets and counters ringed the rest of the interior.

The place seemed mostly untouched by the conflict, save for a smear of blood against the far, right wall and a headless corpse beneath it. Once they were inside, Allan locked the door. Eric saw a gathering of supplies spread out on one of the examination tables. Medical equipment, shotgun shells, a flashlight, a pistol. Allan shrugged out of his lab coat and set down the shotgun, then massaged his temples for a moment.

"Freakin' headaches..." he muttered. "Great time to have one." The three of them stood there in silence for a few moments.

"So, you said you might have some answers..." Eric said, a little uncomfortably. Allan grunted, his hand falling to his side. He nodded.

"Yeah...I think so. I've been working here for about ten years now. A doctor. Not a big, fancy scientist like those idiots..." he heaved a sigh. "To be honest, there isn't any real, concrete evidence of any of this. I've just kept my ear to the ground and gotten to know some of the scientists." Eric shrugged.

"After all the things I just saw...I'm willing to go on a little faith." Allan smiled. Eric hopped up on one of the examination tables. God but did it feel _good_ to just sit down for a minute. He didn't realize how bad his back was killing him.

"Looks like you boys could use a break. Here, eat up while I tell you my story," he said, going over to a mini-fridge. He fished out a pair of sandwiches in plastic bags. "I got peanut butter and jelly, and turkey and swiss. Who wants what?"

"I'll take the PB and J," Steven said. He glanced over at Eric. "If that's okay with you." Eric nodded.

"Fine by me." Allan gave them the sandwiches and two cans of Mountain Dew. Eric was surprised by how ravenous and thirsty he suddenly was. He ate voraciously while Allan spoke, spilling what knew.

"From what I've been able to gather, I believe that the scientists of Black Mesa have been experimenting with teleportation technology. Instantaneous travel from one point to another. Real sci-fi stuff. Only I guess it's not that simple. They were telling me...ugh, how did it go? They said, you have to 'swing' through another dimension. I'm not really sure, but my best guess is that that other dimension was occupied...and we caught their attention."

A lot of things clicked into place for Eric. It seemed to make sense.

"So they let these things in?" Steven asked. Allan nodded grimly.

"Yes. And what's worse is I have _seen_ the Headcrabs teleporting in. I mean, literally out of thin air." Eric felt a cold hand clutch at his heart.

"Wait, so...you mean, they could appear anywhere at any time?" he asked. Allan nodded again, his face stark. "Dear God...what can we do?" he asked, suddenly lost and hopeless all over again. This was something he felt genuinely incapable of handling. How could you fight an enemy that could just teleport into a room with you?"

"Get weapons. Stay alive. Get out of Black Mesa."

"But who's to say it's been confined to just Black Mesa?" Eric asked. There was silence in the medical bay deep beneath the sun and the surface for a long time. No one seemed to have an answer to that. Finally, Eric roused himself.

"Okay, well, look, me and Steven were headed to a radio room. It's a level up. We were going to call for help. Maybe you could join us?"

"Yes. I was actually headed that way myself. When the quake hit, everyone cleared out. But I stayed behind, preparing...I've been readying myself for this, you know. There's a stash of supplies I've been building, across the medical wing, near the elevator that leads up to the radio room. We need to stop by there."

"What's in it?" Eric asked.

"Some medical kits. Bullets. A pair of flak jackets," Allan explained. Eric felt relief.

"Thank God...I've been running low on ammo."

"Here." Allan passed him some shotgun shells, enough to bring the weapon back up to full, and a spare clip for his Glock. As he prepared to go back into the fray, he glanced at a clock mounted on the wall and was shocked to find that four hours had passed. Had it really been four hours? It didn't seem possible. But when he asked himself what amount of time he thought had passed, Eric found that he could come up with no reasonable answer. Time didn't seem to have any significance anymore. He tried not to think about it.

With a little reluctance, Allan gave Steven his spare pistol and one extra clip for it. They headed back out into the corridor. For several moments, the trio moved through the silent devastation of the infirmary wing. They stalked slowly past shattered windows and closed doors. Past congealing pools of blood and unnaturally still bodies. Spent shell casings were crumpled underfoot, bodies were stepped over.

As they turned down the final corridor, Eric caught sight of something completely new. It was low to the ground, standing on two, wide-spread, short and muscular legs. The body was covered in greenish scales that glistened beneath the light. One end was a stubby tail and the other was a mouth that almost looked like a hand. Half a dozen tentacles sprouted from the mouth and each seemed to move of their own volition. A pair angry, glossy black eyes stared at the trio, spread wide across the face.

Whatever it was, it jerked forward suddenly, its mouth contracted, then expanded, the tentacles spreading wide. Something, Eric only caught a hint of blurred green goo, erupted from the dark aperture of its mouth. Eric narrowly avoided it, sidestepping, but heard a wet _splat_ followed immediately by a scream of agony. He brought his shotgun up, took a few steps forward and fired. The muzzle flare turned the corridor into a frozen image for a second as the beast's head exploded in a shower of black gore.

It collapsed to the ground. Eric spun around and saw Steven on the floor, crying out, curled around his hand, his pistol abandoned.

"Don't touch it with your other hand!" Allan snapped, grabbing Steven beneath the armpits and dragging him down the corridor. "Help me! We need to get him to a medical station!" he yelled. Eric let shotgun hang by its sling and ran forward. He grabbed Steven's feet, who was too mired in pain to be of any help. The two of them managed to carry him into an infirmary. Allan practically dropped him and then ran off, throwing open a medical cabinet and sorting through the contents. Eric stood by, unsure of what to do. A moment later, Allan returned.

He held a beaker that was stoppered by a cork. He tore the cork out and poured the clear contents all over Steven's hand, who let out an immense sigh of relief. A sharp, unpleasant smell filled the air. Eric wrinkled his nose.

"God, what _is_ that?" he groaned.

"Vinegar, basically," Allan replied. "Whatever that thing was, it spat acid. Here, let me see it." Steven tentative held up his hand. It was a ruined mess of acid-etched flesh. New grooves and holes, like valleys and craters, had been worn into his skin.

"Good _God_..." Eric whispered.

"He'll be fine," Allan said briskly. "Just help me get him up and over here." He nodded to a white box mounted on a wall. Eric had seen them before, all over the facility, actually. He knew they were medical somehow, but he'd never actually seen one in action. They helped Steven get over to it. Allan put the tech's hand up against the machine, held it there and then hit a button. A needle jutted out suddenly, causing Steven to cry out again. Then he seemed to relax. Eric watched in amazement as the hand suddenly seemed to be less acid-etched.

"What...is this?" he asked.

"Very primitive nanotechnology," Allan replied. "We've been developing it for a few years. They've put these all over the facility. We're a testing ground, honestly."

"I had no idea...wait, a testing ground? You mean, something could go wrong? You don't have the bugs worked out?"

"Yes, basically."

"They can't just test things on us!" Eric snapped.

"They can, actually. It's in your contract. No one reads the small print. But don't worry. It works. Tiny machines are hastening the healing process even as we speak. It'll still be a while, maybe a few days before his hand is back up to snuff, but he won't have any scars and a few days it a lot better than a few weeks or longer. Come on, we should be moving." Allan said, releasing the button. The needle extracted itself, disappearing back into the machine.

"Amazing...how do you feel?" Eric asked. Steven was staring at his hand, which already looked much better. He clenched and released it experimentally.

"A lot better. It still hurts, but...nowhere _near_ as much. More like an ache."

"The nanites also carry tiny sacs of painkillers," Allan said.

"Very wicked," Steven murmured, still staring at his hand.

"Guess you're down for the count when it comes to fighting...couldn't really handle a pistol now for sure. Guess we'll just have to pick up the slack," Eric said. Steven nodded. He seemed relieved. They stepped back out into the corridor and Eric retrieved Steven's abandoned pistol, tucking it into his belt.

"Have you seen anything like that before?" Eric asked, staring at the monster's corpse. Allan shook his head.

"No."

"Maybe we should all get on the same page here. I've been naming them, for a quick reference. It really helps to have a name when you see something and need to shout it out." Allan nodded in agreement. They shared their pool of knowledge and ultimately came up with nothing new, at least for Eric. They had Headcrabs, Zombies, Houndeyes and Barnacles. The Barnacles seemed strange to Eric. They didn't fit in with anything else.

"So what do we call this ugly pug?" Allan asked, kicking at the corpse of the thing they'd put down.

"It kinda looks like a squid, with that mouth, but not exactly. I guess, like a...a..." Eric fumbled for a word.

"Like a Bullsquid!" Steven stated triumphantly. Both men looked at him. "What?" he asked.

"I think it's a good name," Allan said finally. Eric shrugged.

"Close enough, I guess. Where's that cache of yours?" he asked.

"Right over here." He led them to a storage area and removed a ventilation grate. He reached in and began pulling out supplies. Eric helped Steven get a flak jacket on while Allan struggled into his own. He then took another eight shells for his shotgun, the max the weapon could hold, and another clip for the pistol. There was a certain relief and reassurance in having more bullets and shells. Eric made sure that everything was properly secured and attached.

They made for the elevator then, preparing to head up, hopefully to safety.


	7. Communications

_**Chapter 07  
**-Communications-_

The shotgun felt good in his hands. He had enough spare shells that Eric felt he could make it his primary weapon. They were riding the elevator up towards the radio room. He was eager to hear the voice of a higher power, someone who knew more than he did and would be able and willing to direct him to safety. Some part of him that had once been small but was growing with his time spent in the newly devastated Black Mesa Research Facility felt that it was all going to go to hell. The radio would be broken, the area would be overrun, new horrors would be waiting for them up there. Or, hell, maybe the elevator would crash.

Eric tried to make himself focus on something else.

"So...Allan. You seem pretty prepared and able for a medic...no offense." Allan chuckled and let his shotgun hang by its sling for a moment. He took the opportunity to clean his glasses, rubbing them on his shirt, which was pinched beneath the flak jacket.

"I've always had a bit of a paranoid streak in me. You could say it was fostered by the environment Black Mesa provided. I...like to be prepared. I work out, I visit the shooting range as often as I can get away with it. That cache was very recent. I only wish I could've made more of them, gotten my hands on more supplies. But, well, you know how it is." He shrugged and replaced his glasses. The lift continued to hum for several more moments before coming to an abrupt halt. Eric readied himself for conflict.

The doors split open, revealing a derelict antechamber. Blood dripped slowly from the ceiling, pooling in one corner. Eric went first, shotgun held tight against his shoulder. He spied the primary door that led to the radio room itself ahead: a large slab of heavy metal, shut firmly against the world. On either side of him were smaller doorways, doors open, leading to smaller corridors hidden from his view.

The other two hardly had time to step out before they came. Zombies, Headcrabs and Houndeyes, streaming from either side of the room through the open doorways. Eric snapped into action, an inarticulate sound of surprise and fear issuing forth from him. He lowered the barrel of the shotgun, tracking the most dangerous of the creatures, one of the three Houndeyes that twisted among the forest of decayed legs, coming for them. He squeezed the trigger and the front half of the alien dog disappeared in a violent spray of yellow gore and shredded skin. He turned the shotgun, already tracking the second one.

They needed to work fast. Eric's system flooded with adrenaline. There was nowhere to run, no means of viable escape. These things needed to die, and fast. He dispatched the second Houndeye as he caught sight of a Zombie's head erupting violently, syrupy blood splashing across the ceiling and the wall behind it. Allan was a quick shot. The third Houndeye was close now, gearing up, a high-pitched squeal building in powerful. As he was putting it down with a third shell, he heard Steven yelling something.

Eric felt an explosion of pain down his right bicep. He spun and bashed in the Zombie's head with the shotgun. It merely stumbled back a few steps and continued towards him. Ignoring the pain to the best of his ability, adrenaline granting him a powerful, natural anesthetic, he shouldered the shotgun and fired again.

The Zombie went down. So did the next one. Between the two of them, Eric and Allan managed to kill the rest of the creatures. As the last one fell, the pain in Eric's arm became almost unbearable. He groaned, clutching at his ruined sleeve and torn flesh. Blood pulsed between his fingers, running down his arms and dripping to the floor. Allan walked over. He gently pulled Eric's hand back and studied the wound, then pulled his medical kit off his belt. He knelt and popped it open, rifling around in the small, hard plastic case.

"Get me to a nanotech box," Eric said through gritted teeth. Allan shook his head.

"No, there are none in the comms facility. And Steven used what was left in the medical wing. There aren't any others around that I know about," he replied, pulling out a needle and staring at it, holding it up to the light. He flicked it several times, a few miniscule air bubbles rising to the top. He pushed the plunger in slightly, until a tiny squirt of liquid came out. He stood and without waiting for Eric's permission stuck the tip of the needle in. Eric hissed in pain but held still, watching the clear liquid disappear into his arm.

"Local anesthetic," Allan said without looking up. He abandoned the needle and crouched once more, this time coming up with a bottle of iodine.

"This will hurt," he said, screwing off the top and abandoning it. Eric had just begun to clench his muscles in preparation when Allan dumped the bacteria-killing liquid across the trio of deep, bloody gashes. Eric had been through pain before, a lot of it. He had been shot twice. But even then a loud but short scream of agony escape his lips.

"Sorry," Allan murmured, dumping the bottle. He knelt once more and found some bandages. He bandaged the wounds, then wrapped Eric's bicep tightly in gauze. When he was finished, Eric felt a little better. He moved his arm experimentally. It ached, but the injection was doing its work. He prayed they found a nano-box before it wore off.

"Alright, let's get in there," Eric said, making for the door that led to the radio room. He checked out both offshoot corridors first and found them empty of life. Steven approached a small panel embedded into the thick door frame that ringed the slab of metal. He knelt and studied it, then tapped a few commands into it. Eric reloaded his shotgun.

"More good news," he muttered. "Someone tripped the lockdown. And it looks like this is a dual-lock system. Means we've got to head down these two corridors and both hit the unlock button at the same time." Eric sighed.

"I'll break left, you two right. How will we coordinate?" he asked.

"There should be intercoms in the security centers at the end of each corridor," Steven replied. Eric nodded. He turned and looked down the left corridor, uncertain. It wasn't long. He could see the end of it and the door to the security center. But...something felt wrong.

"Well, let's get going. Sooner the better," he said. They set off, splitting up and making their way down opposite corridors. Eric checked out a pair of doors along the right wall. One was an office in chaotic disarray and the other was a barren power relay room, meant to siphon energy from a generator and route it to the area.

He hesitated as he reached the security door. There was something on the air...something powerful. Eric realized his hairs were standing up. He gripped the shotgun and raised it right as light began to flicker and dance on the air. It was green, a deep but brilliant shade of murky emerald. At first there were just spits of it, tiny particles that popped in and out of existence. A hum of immense energy and power was thick on the air.

Then it happened. A ball of energy, solid and pulsing madly, appeared a few feet in front of him. Eric's eyes widened as the hum of power increased in power, a deep bass rumble that vibrated his bones and permeated through his very being.

What was happening?

Something appeared in a flash of green light. Eric blinked in raw surprise. It was very roughly humanoid, in the sense that it had two arms, two legs, a head and a torso. But the resemblance ended there. It was hunched forward, skin textured like gnarled, weathered wood and so dark it was nearly black. There were things on it, on its wrist and neck, glittering green shackles and a collar of burnished metal. It was nude otherwise and had clawed hands and feet. An enormous crimson orb set high into the middle of its alien face turned to stare at Eric. It began to rub its hands together, a deep hum of power warbling on the air.

This time, Eric's body spoke for him. His fingers twitched and he hit the double-blast, secondary trigger of the shotgun. It bucked violently in his hands but the twelve-gauge buckshot made brutal and short work of the alien thing. The top half of its torso vanished in a thick spray of dark blood and muscle. It collapsed to the ground, unable to do whatever it was it wanted to do. Eric stared at the corpse for several seconds, then finally moved forward, stepping over it cautiously. He came to the security center door and opened it.

The center was a squad room, little more than a desk with some monitors and a keyboard piled atop it and a swivel chair. He sat down in the chair, still shaky with terror. An intercom, mounted on the wall to his right, was squawking at him, Steven's tinny voice coming out.

_"What were you shooting at? What happened? Are you alright, Eric?"_ he asked. His hand trembling slightly, he reached over and hit the reply button.

"Uh...yeah. I'm here. I'm fine. I...saw a new one. It teleported in right in front of me. It's a new one," he said.

_"What did it look like? Wait, nevermind. It's dead, right?"_

"Yeah. It's dead. Deader than dead."

_"Okay. Good. First, let's get this door open, then we'll talk. We should take a look at it. Okay, there should be a flashing red button on the keyboard. You see it?"_ Eric glanced down. One of the bigger buttons was pulsing weakly.

"Yeah."

_"On three, push it. One...two...three!"_ Eric hit the button. Distantly, he heard something click loudly. _"It worked. Let's meet at the corpse of...whatever it was you killed."_

"Alright." Eric left the security room, moving back down the corridor to the remains of the creature. The fogged green metal of the manacles on its wrists gleaned dully in the light and he stared at them, wondering about their nature. Eric glanced up as footfalls caught his attention. Steven and Allan were staring at the body.

"My God..." Allan whispered, kneeling by the corpse. He prodded the bracelets gently with the tip of his shotgun. "This is significant," he said.

"How?" Eric asked. He had an idea, but he wanted to hear it from the doctor.

"Everything we've encountered so far...it's all been very suggestive of an animal intelligence. Besides the teleportation that is. I had considered an idea that teleportation might be a natural ability...but I've passed that out of hand now," Allan murmured, still staring at the body.

"Why's that?" Eric asked.

"Besides initial teleportation into our dimension, I have seen none of them preform additional short-range teleportation. It's possible that something in our dimension may strip them of the ability once they arrive...but I think it's likelier that something sent them here. Everything that's happened so far...I feel as though there's a larger intelligence behind this. But this is the first solid bit of evidence I've seen so far." They all stared down at the body now.

"So this thing...it's in charge? Or those _like it_ are in charge?" Steven asked. Allan shook his head.

"No...look at those bracelets. I think what we're looking at is some kind of foot soldier...perhaps a slave. Although, I suppose it's possible that those bracelets may act as...armor? Or an ability enhancer? A weapon?"

"It had one around its neck, too...I think you're right. I think this is some kind of...alien slave," Eric murmured. Allan nodded.

"Very interesting. Is this our eventual fate? Mindless slaves, shackled and forced to attack?"

"What should we call this one?" Eric asked.

"I think you hit the nail on the head. Alien Slave. Blunt but effective. Let's hope we don't run into many more of these..." They left the body behind and came to the radio room. Steven opened the door and they stepped into an octagonal room stuffed with all manner of equipment, technology and machinery. It lined the walls and a series of desks, built into the wall, ringed the interior of the room. There were half a dozen swivel chairs, most of them knocked over. No bodies, no blood. The room looked untouched.

"Huh," Steven murmured, righting one of the chairs and began working the controls. Eric and Allan waited in silence after Eric secured the door behind them, feeling uncomfortable with such a broad hole open in the wall. He looked around, lost in the technological garden of screens, switches, keyboards and gauges. His eyes did, however, fall upon a ladder, stuck in the far corner, that led up into a hole in the ceiling.

Curiosity drew him to it and he walked over. Glancing up, he saw it went quite a ways up. Perhaps to the surface...he felt a bit of excitement. This could be their ticket out. Abruptly, Steven sighed explosively next to them.

"What is it?" Allan asked.

"Something's wrong. All of the equipment in here is untouched. It works fine. It's just..." he fell into thought for a moment. "It must be the booster on the surface! Something must've happened to it. We have to go up there so I can have a look. It should be on the roof," he said, glancing at the ladder. Eric nodded, eager for a chance to get topside. It had been a long time since he'd been above ground and seen the sun, two weeks at least.

He began climbing, Allan right behind him and Steven bringing up the rear. They climbed like that for several moments in silence, ascending up a narrow shaft of fluted steel, lit at two meter intervals by rings of halogen light. Eric reached the maintenance hatch and spun the wheel. As he pushed it open, bleak yellow sunlight spilled in, filling the shaft. He squinted, nearly blinded, and waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust. While he waited, he heard distant sounds: the staccato echo of a machine gun, an explosion, followed rapidly by three more, very distant shouting. Did Black Mesa _have_ machine guns?

Eric climbed up and out. They were standing atop a cylinder of concrete, a story above a canyon floor. The walls to either side of him were high and rocky, the area they were in pinched between the rock walls so that he could hardly see anything. Nothing behind them, the walls came together for form an awkward seam. Ahead of them there was a bend in the canyon and nothing but a very basic concrete pathway and some power lines.

Eric looked up as he helped Allan and Steven out of the shaft. Blue, cloudless skies overhead. Steven immediately knelt by a dish that sat atop a box of equipment and got to work. They waited in an uncomfortable silence, punctuated by the sounds of combat.

"Sounds like it's really spread all over," Allan said unhappily.

"Yeah. It does." There was a lot on Eric's mind, but he didn't want to play any guessing games, at least not aloud, not yet. They had enough to worry about without...he mentally forced the thoughts down. No. First the radio, then he'd think.

"Got it. Some faulty wiring," Steven said, closing a panel with a sharp snap. They descended the ladder once more and when they were at the bottom, Steven slid into his seat again. He had someone on the horn in thirty seconds.

_"Say again, who is this?"_ Eric took the radio.

"My name is Eric Bishop. I'm with security. Got a doctor and a tech with me. Who's this?" he replied.

_"Name's Williams. I'm in a topside storage facility. Security guard. There's about a dozen of us holed up here...we'd sure love to add to that number. We're getting attacked by...whatever the hell these things are, but we're mostly secure. I've also been getting reports that someone managed to make the call and the Marines have been sent in to rescue us."_

"Good. Which storage area are you in?"

_"Warehouse Six. Lot C."_

"We're in Radio Room Four B, is that far?"

_"Four B?...No, not too far at all, I think, if you are where I think you are. Follow the valleys to an abandoned rail station, then from there you need to find a way through the dormitories building and a Hazard Course. We're just on the other side of the Hazard Course."_

"Affirmative. We're on our way."

_"Glad to hear it. Just...watch your ass out there. It's bad."_

"Will do." Eric killed the connection, gathered up the others and began to climb the ladder once again.


	8. Topside

_**Chapter 08  
**-Topside-_

Eric stared up at the clear blue sky again after he had climbed down the ladder and was waiting for the others to join him. It seemed so strange that such wretched chaos could be happening on such a nice day. At the very least, it could be raining. But it didn't rain out here. Or if it did, it was a rarity. Eric missed the rain. The peace was broken by a shrieking of power and air, then a fighter jet zipped by overhead.

"Jesus, looks like they're really tearing into this place," Steven said after he stepped up next to Eric, watching the jet go. "Just hope they remember who not to shoot, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah..." Eric murmured, still staring up. "I really hope so."

"Let's be off then. I'd rather like to be out of this sun. Been too long since I've seen the surface and, well, let's just say that the sun and I have never got on too well, huh?" Allan asked, clapping them both on the back. His shotgun hung by a sling, as did Eric's. Eric nodded.

"Yeah, let's get going."

He brought his shotgun into play as he led the way down the barren concrete path, beset on both sides by baked desert dirt. For several moments, they walked in relative peace. Eric listened to the distant sounds of conflict, machine gun fire and explosions that echoed across the area, and wondered just how bad it was going to get. He'd been in the Marine Corps. He knew how ugly it could get, how easily it could fall apart...and how extraordinary the lengths of a team or even single man could go. He had hope, but not much.

Eric glanced up as a helicopter buzzed overhead. A Blackhawk. It gleaned briefly in the sun like a giant insect of cast in black metal and mirrored glass. It was going to get worse before it got better, he could just feel it. The concrete pathway curved ahead of them, out of sight. They had a little while to go and had seemingly hit a peaceful patch.

"So, Allan, before you were Black Mesa, what did your life look like?" Eric asked.

"Grim, I'm afraid," Allan replied. "I got my doctorate on the fast track. I was good, goddamned good. Busted complete ass to graduate ahead of schedule. I was twenty six and riding high. I landed a job in New York. Started dating one of the nurses. Got marred in a year. We got a house in the suburbs, nice, big four bedroom. Planning for kids, you know?"

"What's so grim about that?" Steven asked. Eric remained silent. He had something of an idea of where this was going.

"I had just hit thirty, maybe two months had gone by since my birthday. Everything was going smooth. I was working...tolerable shifts at the hospital. Had a fat bank account and our first was on the way. She was eight months pregnant when she was in a car accident. She died, the kid died. Both on impact. Truck T-boned right into her side. Smashed her and my unborn daughter into oblivion. Drunk driver. He walked away without a scratch. Still in jail, I hope."

"Jesus Christ...I'm sorry," Eric said, feeling that it wasn't nearly enough of a thing to say, but not knowing what else to say. Silence felt inappropriate.

"I was, too. I tried to kill myself. Twice, actually. First time, a week later when it really hit me for real. I was drunk. Slit my wrists, but not vertically. I wasn't thinking straight. A friend found me, I was hospitalized. Right about the time they were deciding what to do with me, I tried again, only this time something much less dramatic, sleeping pills. Sleep was not a thing I had been acquainted with often, in my life. Many sleepless nights, insomnia and long hours. I thought...sleep might be good for me. Just sleep, forever."

"What happened?" Eric asked after a brief pause.

"I slipped into a nine day coma. When I woke up, they put me under twenty four hour suicide watch. Lot of good it did them. I didn't want to kill myself anymore...something had happened, while I was under. No idea what, I still don't know. But I wanted to live, to move on. I sold my house and most of my belongings and landed a job at Black Mesa. Had an old friend who already worked there and well..." he shrugged. "When the government is looking for brains, they don't much care about the stability of those brains, or where they come from. I think we proved that after World War Two and the bidding war we got in over those Nazi scientists..."

A long silence passed after that. They came around the bend in the valley and spied an abandoned security checkpoint that was little more than a tollbooth next to a door cut into the rock wall. Eric used his security clearance to get them through and they came to a similar valley on the other side, this one straighter. They could see to the end. There were signs of conflict, but no corpses, and nothing living.

"What about you?" Allan asked.

"Me?" Eric replied. "I'm afraid my history is quite boring compared to yours."

"Fess up," Steven said. Eric chuckled.

"I was pretty plain all through high school. Socially awkward, no girlfriends, standard fare. When I was eighteen, freshly graduated, I got into an accident. Bad one, nearly killed me. It...opened my eyes. I was in the hospital for a week. When I got out...everything changed. That wreck showed me how I had no control over the world I lived in, that I could only control myself. It showed me how..._easily_ it could all be taken away, in the blink of eye. It sounds cliched and you always hear shit like that in the movies but...when it really hits home, well, nothing's cliche when it's happening to you, I guess.

"So for three years I did everything I could to prepare myself for...anything, really. I started working out. Lost weight, built muscle. Took a couple self-defense courses. Applied for a permit for a pistol, bought one, went to the shooting range and learned how to shoot. By the time I was approaching twenty one, I felt like I need another push. I joined the Marines. Got through boot a lot easier than most of the other guys. Not much later...I went out to Iraq. Did three tours there...saw some nasty shit...finally got booted when I got into a fight with my Sergeant. He wanted to fire on some civvies, thought they were packing heat, I strongly felt they weren't..." Eric trailed off into silence as they approached a second checkpoint.

"So what happened?" Allan asked.

"I was right, he was wrong, I saved fourteen lives that day, but I did it by punching his lights out. They wanted to court-martial me, throw me in prison, but I had worked up a lot of good will over the tours and...my motives weren't entirely lost on my superiors. I was dishonorably discharged. I drifted for a little while...finally took up work with Black Mesa. And that's me, I guess."

They passed through the security checkpoint and came to a third valley. At the other end of this one was the entryway into abandoned railway area. A Blackhawk had gone down halfway across the valley, send a thick black plume of smoke into the air. The trio approached it cautiously. Eric made the other two stand back as he advanced on the wreckage. He peered into the cockpit, through the cracked windows, and saw that the pilot had died on impact. A look into the cabin showed him only a handful of burnt skeletons, still strapped in, now melted to their seats.

"Jesus," he whispered. The sounds of conflict were closer now. The time for talk was finished, the time for action had fallen upon them. Eric rejoined the group and led them around the ruined chopper. Was it the same one he'd seen overhead not ten minutes ago? No, he decided as they approached the third security checkpoint. They'd have heard the crash. He used his security clearance once more and they cycled through the small corridor cut into the mountainside. The door opened to reveal a derelict rail station.

"Why do they have railways here?" Steven asked.

"They used to use them, back when this was a missile silo. Long time ago. Decades. They used the railcarts to shift heavy equipment and raw materials, when they were still digging out caverns. Eventually, they managed to get more a more streamlined, underground process going, so they just...abandoned this place," Allan explained.

A bolt of green energy arched overhead, narrowly avoiding Eric's skull. He raised the shotgun and fired almost before he had registered that one of the Alien Slaves was nearby. Its head disappeared in a spray of chunky gore.

"Holy shit!" Steven snapped in raw surprise.

"We've got to focus," Eric said, willing himself not to yell at them. They'd let the guard down, and him with them. He felt stupid and shouldn't take it out on them. After a moment, it became clear that there was nothing else in the immediate area. Eric studied the environment as they crossed the freight yard. Derelict train carts, rusted with time and weather, sat like metal corpses on the old tracks that crisscrossed the gravel and concrete ground. Off to the right was an unloading platform shaded by a tin roof propped up on rigid wooden struts.

A handful of Zombie corpses were spread out across the area, left to rot and bake in the high-noon desert sun. Already the smell was appalling. Eric led Allan and Steven over to a ramp along the loading platform. There were no other doors in the area, at least no human-sized ones. All the garage-style, corrugated doors meant for the trains were closed and sealed. Eric pushed the door open with the barrel of his shotgun.

There was a corpse inside the small, rectangular room beyond. The room was once obviously meant for interim storage but now was long abandoned. The corpse, a scientist in a bloody white lab coat, was the only occupant.

"Hey...he was killed by bullets," Allan murmured, staring at the body. Eric felt a cold line for fear shoot through his body.

"That doesn't make any sense," Steven said slowly. "Did..." he looked around. "Did the Zombies learn how to use weapons? Is that...do we have to worry about that now?" Eric remained silent, staring at the corpse. No signs of infection or transformation. There was no way this guy could've been mistaken for a Zombie.

"Friendly fire?" Allan asked, glancing over at Eric.

"Maybe," he replied quietly. "It's possible." But he was worried of something much worse. "We should keep moving," he said, finally.

"Aren't you curious?" Steven asked.

"Yes. Very. But I've seen enough lead-addled corpses in my time. I can think on the move," he replied, a little harsher than he meant to. Allan gave him a look and Steven just hesitated, then nodded. They left the antechamber and came to another yard. The trainyards were practically carbon copies of each other. Only they got bloodier as they went on. More bodies, some alien, some human. All of them pumped full of lead.

Eric was beginning to sweat as they came to the edge of the yards. He got them through another security checkpoint and stared down a sun-drenched length of valley that led to the dormitories building. It looked clear. Eric stared up at the three-story structure as they approached it. His skin crawled and his back muscles were contracting. He felt like he was being watched. The distinct lack of enemies and surplus of corpses was worrying him. It was clear that the Marines had come here in force. But with what intention?

They made it down the valley without incident. Eric's security pass got them into the lobby of the dormitories building. A fire had raged and burned itself out not too long ago, long fingers of black soot reaching up one wall. A lonely, headless corpse, once a security guard, hung awkwardly across the main desk. The screen of his computer was shattered, parts of it still transmitting broken static. Set high into the wall over the main doorways there were broad windows, one of them broken out, a rain of glass shards spread out across the tiled blue lobby floor.

"Damn," Allan murmured. Bullet holes were everywhere, spent shell casings littered the floor and blood tattooed the walls like some primal graffiti. Eric made his way slowly to the door at the back, hoping to get through without too much trouble. He pushed the door open cautiously and was offered a view of a stark corridor, light damaged and flickering. A pair of Zombies were crouched over the corpse of a Marine. Further on, almost as if on lookout, an Alien Slave stood hunched. Eric raised his shotgun, tucked it tight against his shoulder and fired.

The kick made the gun buck in his hand and some of the buckshot winged the Slave. It shrieked as a cloud of crimson blood flew into the air, making it stumble. The Zombies made wretched groaning noises and stood, coming for him almost automatically. The Alien Slave raised its hands, rubbing them together, a green energy burning there. Eric raised his shotgun, hoping to get it before it got a shot off. He wasn't sure how much of a surge that bolt of energy would produce, but he really didn't feel like finding out.

Allan saved him the trouble. He barely had time to register the nose of the pistol beside him at head-level before Allan popped off two shots, one glancing off the top of its skull, the other punching straight through its ugly red eye. It collapsed and Eric was nearly deaf. His ears ringing, he let his shotgun hang and pulled out his pistol. Together, they each killed a Zombie. Once the corpses collapsed to the floor, Eric reholstered his pistol and fed two more shells into his shotgun.

"Thanks for that, Allan," Eric said, rubbing his ear, which was still ringing. Probably would be for a little while.

"You'll be fine, you big baby," Allan replied.

"What?"

"Smartass."

They pressed on, moving slowly down the corridor to a cross-section at the end. All the doors were closed. Eric ignored the doors to his left and right, instead pressing straight on. He and the others side-stepped a pair of Barnacles hanging in the next corridor, which was very dark. Eric opened the corresponding door at the other end and nearly had his face melted off by a gob of green acid. He spun and fired on the Bullsquid, put it down hard.

"Is it clear?" Allan asked cautiously from the darkened corridor. They had come to a bloody messhall.

"Looks clear," Eric replied. They made their way slowly through the large tables bolted to the floor towards the kitchen at the back. Being in here reminded of Eric of high school lunch rooms and gave him a severe sense of dislocation. He wanted to be somewhere else. He missed his parents, very suddenly and very painfully, and decided that if he somehow got out of this alive he'd go and see his parents for several months.

There was a door in the back of the kitchen. It led to precious sunlight and another stretch of desert, this one with a more well-maintained concrete pathway with light-poles that no doubt burned a sharp sodium yellow in the night for late-nighters. Not but twenty meters away, Eric could see the low steel and glass structure of the Hazard Course.

They weren't far now.


	9. Haphazard

_**Chapter 09  
**-Haphazard-_

The Hazard Course.

Eric wasn't familiar with this particular building, but he felt close to positive that it would be close to, if not a carbon copy of, the one he'd spent so much time on. In a surprising move by Black Mesa, they required everyone to run the Hazard Course at least once every three months. If you couldn't do it, you didn't keep your job. Of course he knew that hard and fast rule didn't apply to a lot of the scientists.

If you couldn't do it, well...exceptions could be made for someone so smart, right? Besides, a lot of the scientists and techs and medics didn't get in their field to run a freaking Hazard Course. They probably got into their field for the sole reason that they _weren't _physically fir or capable. And what would Black Mesa be without their great minds? Just lonely corridors and empty science labs, rendered useless.

Now he stared up at the building. It wasn't like he was going to have to run this one, anyway. Just get through it. But what might be in there? Likely they'd be playing for keeps this time, and failure meant death.

"Ugh. I always hated this thing," Steven said as they made their final approach on the course building.

"I didn't quiet relish it, but...it _was_ useful for keeping up to snuff," Allan said.

"Wish I'd spent more time here, now. Always meant to get into shape but..." Steven shrugged. "Honestly, working out is pretty objectively terrible."

"You just gotta get an early start on it. Hammer it into a habit. Then it's a lot easier," Eric replied. They came into the main lobby. It was obvious that the place had been hit hard. Bullet holes and shell casings. A trio of Marine corpses, stripped of weapons and supplies, were spread out across the lobby in random poses of grim death. Eric had the pistol out, letting the shotgun hang, ready for something nasty and full of teeth to come at him.

He tried to go the easy way. There were hallways connected to a series of observation platforms that cut right through the bulk of the facility. But it was locked and even his security passcode couldn't get the door to open. They couldn't force it open, either, because it was too heavy. Steven spent five minutes trying to make it work, and finally gave up, disgusted.

"I just can't do it," he said. Eric briefly felt like pressing him for more details, but immediately decided that if Steven couldn't do it, none of them could. It became obvious that they'd have to do it the hard way.

Eric sighed softly and went over to the entrance to the Course itself. It was almost like a locker room, where you could do stretches and prepare yourself for the coming trails. Someone had tattooed the walls with bullets and old blood. A cluster of Headcrab corpses littered the ground. Eric stepped over them, going for the far door.

Eric went first. The first order of business was a lengthy, broad corridor filled with obstacles. Yeah, this was looking familiar. He took it slow, making his was cautiously, blazing a trail through the metal forest. He'd made it a decent distance, hopping over metal railings and being forced to crawl through a pipe at one point, and he was thinking that there weren't going to be any monsters hidden in the shadows.

He was wrong. Eric came out of a second pipe and narrowly avoided being eaten by a Headcrab, which leapt directly at him. He cried out as claws raked across his face and felt blood spill immediately. He brought his pistol into play, zeroed it on the little bastard and squeezed the trigger twice, spraying the area with fresh yellow blood.

"You okay?!" Allan called.

"Fine. Just fine! Little bastard got me! It's mostly clear, you guys might as well start coming on through!" he replied. The two men heeded his advice and began making slow progress across the first room. Eric finished up, getting to the door at the far end and putting down another pair of Headcrabs. He did a quick patch job on his face. Once the others had arrived, they continued. The next room was another, more complex course, and they found it to be mercifully empty.

After another fifteen minutes, they had navigated that room and come to the third, where they discovered the corpse of a Marine being eaten by a pair of Bullsquids. Eric managed to get the drop on the first one, quietly bringing his shotgun into play and blasting half of it away in a spray of dark gore. The second spun and let out a sharp, surprised sound. It spat a thick wad of toxic goo, which narrowly avoided Eric's face.

He could smell whatever acid it contained and it singed his nostrils. His eyes watered and he missed his second shot. There was another shotgun blast beside him and the second Bullsquid went down with a wet crash.

"Little bastard," Allan muttered. Eric coughed violently for a few moments. Allan slapped him on the back a few times. "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine, fine...just, that crap got really close," he said. He rubbed at his eyes and finally managed to get himself under control. "Alright, let's go."

They passed through a pair of shooting ranges and another, even more intricate obstacle course before they finally reached the exit on the opposite end. Eric was still frustrated that the damned door hadn't simply _worked_. He was tired and hungry enough as it was. He'd been going for hours now and there was more yet to come. As they stepped back out into the desert sun, he started wondering about movie protagonists or video game characters who seemed to go on and on and on with no real break. It was unrealistic.

They were about halfway across the last valley, heading towards the entryway to the warehousing lot, when it occurred to Eric that the fighting seemed to have fallen away. He listened for a few seconds before bringing it up.

"Maybe they subdued the area," Steven suggested hopefully.

"Or maybe they abandoned the area. That's never a good sign," Eric replied, reloading his shotgun and cocking it.

They entered the warehousing lot. It was little more than a cluster of warehouses amidst a blacktop lot, surrounded on all sides with concrete walls with few breaks in them for gates. Everything had a very grim and gritty feel to it. Somewhere there was a fire burning, but Eric couldn't see it, just the pall of smoke in the air. He'd checked the sign at the gate and found that they were indeed in Lot C. Now they just had to find Warehouse Six.

Distantly, a spray of gunfire caused everyone to seize up, but the battle was far away. They kept going, keeping a sharp eye out for signs of life or resistance. Part of Eric wanted very badly to believe that this was going to be all over soon. That they'd get to the pickup zone and there would be a bunch of Marines waiting for them there, preparing to take them away and get them the hell out of Black Mesa, which they were in the process of mopping up.

Only there was another part of him, a growing part, that was worried that everything was going to go straight to hell and this day would never end. Nothing but monsters and terror and blood. A lot of people would call Eric a pessimist, but he'd always thought of himself as a grim realist. Life tended to be shit, one way or the other.

They found Warehouse Six.

"Alright, let's get inside. I need a break," he said. And he meant it. He was extremely thirsty and his back was killing him. Just to sit down for five minutes...He found the main entrance and knocked, announcing himself. There was no response. He sighed and double checked to make sure that this was Six and confirmed that yes, it was, when he spied the big **6** spray-painted on the side of the warehouse again. He knocked once more.

Nothing. Eric felt cold fear grip his heart. He tried the handle. It wasn't locked. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, shotgun first.

"Oh. My. God."

Eric thought that he had prepared himself for the worst possible outcome. If this wasn't it...then it was damned close. The warehouse looked a whole lot like other warehouses. It was basically one big room with a lot of boxes piled up around the sides, leaving an empty space in the middle. And that's what this one looked like. The only difference was the piles of corpses, the pools and sprays of bullet, the incredible amount of bullet holes, the spent shell casings...the reek of death was very, very thick upon the air.

Eric wasn't sure how long he stood there, staring. It was when Steven vomited that he broke his trance.

"My God..." Allan whispered.

"What...what happened?!" Steven cried.

"Shut up!" Eric snapped. "They might still be here."

"Who!?"

"Marines. They must have done this."

"What? No! They're here to help us!" Steven insisted.

"I'm afraid your friend is right," a new voice said. All three of them snapped their gazes, and their weapons, over. A man in a white labcoat was sitting against one of the boxes. Eric had figured him for dead initially. He hurried over, kneeling by the man. He was old, perhaps into his early sixties, his hair so gray it had gone white. His skin was almost as pale as his hair, his eyes hollow. His hands were clasped over his gut, which had obviously bled a great deal.

"Jesus," Eric whispered.

"I'm dying," the man said simply. "My name's Felix Falkner. And yes, it was Marines that did this to us. But listen," and here he gripped Eric, who was beginning to get his medkit out. Allan and Steven came over. Allan knelt beside him. "We had a plan. And escape plan."

"We need to help you," Allan said calmly.

"No." Felix waved off Allan's hands. "No, it's too late. I know that. But listen. In the back of the Lot, there's an underground service tunnel entrance. Follow it. It leads straight to an airfield, not far away from here. I believe there's still a plane there. Small, but serviceable. The Marines are in chaos right now, trying to get established and keep the monsters out. You could sneak to the plane and fly it out of here."

"Won't they just shoot us down?" Allan asked. Felix shrugged.

"Better than no plan," he said. Then he died. It was a simple thing, almost as though someone had flicked a switch. His eyes seemed to go dead and he just stopped breathing. Eric slowly stood up, staring at Felix as he did. He then turned and surveyed the carnage once more. He wanted to ask himself how, how was this possible? He himself had been a Marine. Surely they were more honorable than this?

Only he knew they weren't. For a fact. Marines were easily brainwashed. Give them an order and most of them would follow it. Hell, the majority of the men he had known would 'yes, sir!' themselves straight to Hell if need be.

"So what do we do?" Steven asked.

"We follow his plan. It's all we've got," Eric replied after a moment.

"What?!" Steven cried. "Seriously?!" Eric spun on him suddenly, causing him to take a step back.

"Yes, I'm serious. Completely serious. We have no idea how bad it is out there. We need to leave Black Mesa _now_, not in a few hours, not tomorrow. We have highly trained squads of Marines dedicated _solely_ to killing everything that isn't them on one side, and a rampaging horde of inter-dimensional alien monsters who seem to be killing everything that isn't _them_ on the other side! We're _three guys_ who aren't very heavily armed, armored or skilled! It's a _miracle_ that we've survived so far! So spread out and search for supplies!" he screamed.

Steven was silent and pale. Allan stood to the side, neutral and quiet. Eric turned and stomped off deeper into the warehouse. Seconds bled into minutes as the trio spread out and searched the area. Eric patted down every body he came across quickly and efficiently. It was clear that the Marines had done at least a cursory search of the area, but they'd been quick and sloppy. Every now and then Eric would find a shell or a clip of ammo.

Nearly twenty minutes passed before they were satisfied they had thoroughly searched the area. They brought their findings to an office in the back of the warehouse, away from the blood and the death. Even still, the stench was bad. Eric looked over the pitiful amount of ammunition and supplies they'd managed to gather. After dividing it up, he managed to get get a handful of shells and another pair of clips.

That was it.

There was, however, something more important in the office. A mini-fridge. It had in it a handful of fruit cups, a couple of sodas, a bottle of water and two sandwiches. Eric passed it all out the best he could.

"I don't think I can eat," Steven said quietly.

"Just eat. You'll regret it if you don't. This isn't about taste anymore, it's about survival. Your body needs fuel," Eric replied. Steven began to eat silently. After a moment, Eric sighed softly. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. It's just...this is a life or death situation, Steven. And I respect that you've never been in one of those before but, you've just...you've got to just trust me and listen to me and not argue with me, okay?" he asked.

"Okay. I get it. I...I'm just scared. Terrified. I keep feeling like I'm going to pass out, but somehow I manage not to. I'm not supposed to be here. I keep thinking 'this can't be happening to me.' I know it's stupid but..." he shrugged.

"I get it. I had similar thoughts when I got deployed and put in my first firefight. It seemed unreal, impossible. Like, this is something that happens in movies, or something you read about. How is it happening to _me_? You'll get over it, sooner than you think. You're in shock and it's unfair that we have to keep moving, but we do. If we don't, they'll find us and kill us."

Steven looked like he wanted to argue, to suggest something else, but he didn't. Allan remained quiet. They finished up their food, loaded up their weapons and left the warehouse. Outside, Eric managed to locate the service tunnel entrance with relative ease. Eric went first, descending into the narrow shaft, lit only by crimson lights. He reached the bottom, scouted the area then called the others down.

Once the trio was below the earth, they began following the only way out: a dank, dark tunnel barely tall enough for them to fit.

"So...does anyone know how to fly a plane?" Eric asked.

"I do," Allan replied.

"Oh, wow, really?"

"Yes. I took lessons one summer...it seemed like a good way to kill time. Provided it isn't a fighter jet, I can fly one. And I believe Black Mesa uses basic cargo planes, so I should be able to fly whatever we can find," Allan replied.

"Man, that is a huge stroke of luck."

"You're telling me."

They found the corresponding ladder and went up. Eric popped the hatch and found himself on one side of an airstrip. He could hear a great deal of chatter and machinery running somewhere nearby. He called the others up, but quietly, and crept up to a concrete barrier. He peered over the side and his stomach went cold.

The Marines had set up HQ right at the end of the airfield, all around the control tower. Allan and Steven crept up next to him.

"Oh God, oh God," Steven moaned. Eric looked around and spied a small red plane on the opposite end of the runway. There appeared to be no activity down there. He licked his lips nervously. They might still make it out of this.

"Okay guys, look. There's the plane. All we have to do is sneak down there and take off. Ready?" he asked. The others nodded. "Alright, let's-"

"Hey! You there! Hands up!"

"Oh shit," Eric moaned. Suddenly the area was being peppered with gunfire from a machine gun or six. Hardly before he knew what had happened, his face was sprayed with blood and the top of Steven's head seemed to disappear in a plume of gore. He collapsed to the ground without uttering a single sound. Suddenly, the gunfire stopped. Eric prepared himself to retaliate, to return fire and go down while taking as many of the bastards down with him as he could. It was a last-ditch effort, but revenge was better than nothing.

He heard a sound behind him, glanced over his shoulder, his back still pressed against the concrete barrier.

A Marine leaned over him and bashed his head with the butt of his rifle.


	10. Military Intelligence

_**Chapter 10  
**-Military Intelligence-_

Eric Bishop existed in a world constructed entirely of shadows and pain.

He had no idea how long he spent there, floating in a sea of dark agony, but at some point, he began to hear sounds. Something beyond the suffering pierced his perception. The world imperceptibly went from black to dark gray, becoming lighter and lighter. The sounds became voices, but they sounded like they were far off, coming to him from a great distance. Their meaning became lost in the echo.

"I think this one's waking up."

Everything seemed to come into focus. Eric had no grasp on time, but he opened his eyes to a small, drab office lit by too-bright sunlight. A pair of Marines, men in desert camo with machine guns and cigarettes, stood across from him. They were grinning at him wickedly from around the cigs. Eric realized he was sitting, his hands cuffed tightly behind his back. He glanced over and saw Allan leaning haphazardly against the wall next to him, still out.

"Rise and shine, asshole," one of them said.

"Why are you doing this?" Eric asked after a moment. It was difficult to think through the pain. It felt like someone had cracked his skull open and he was keeping his brains from leaking out through sheer willpower.

"Orders," the second Marine said. Eric hawked and spat a thick wad of blood onto one of the Marine's boots.

"That's what I think of your orders," he said. The men looked at him for a second, then the one he'd spat on began to advance across the office towards him.

"I'll teach you some manners, you son of a-"

"Hey! You hear that? Sergeant's coming. Shit!" The second Marine flicked his cigarette out the window and, after a few seconds, the first one did so as well. They resumed their posts, standing silent and erect. A moment later, the door flew open and a tall, buff, stern-faced man marched into the room. He walked up to Eric and stared down at him with eyes as cold as space. For a long moment, he didn't say anything, just stared. Then, he knelt and said,

"Do you know why we didn't kill you?" Eric didn't say anything. The Sergeant continued on as if Eric had responded with a pleasant 'No, sir. I have no idea. Please explain.' "Black Mesa is a big, big place. And we've got a lot of cleaning up to do. And we're just getting started. So howzabout you tell me where your friends are hiding? I've got a map, you can point to where on it. I'll let you live if you help out."

Despite how cold his eyes were, the Sergeant sounded very reasonable.

"I don't know where anyone else is. Even if I did, I'd tell you go commit suicide," Eric replied. Then he hawked and spat another wad of bloody saliva onto the Sergeant's face. It landed on his cheek. "That's what I think your deal," he said.

"I see," the Sergeant said calmly, standing back up and wiping his face. "Perhaps your friend will be more agreeable." The Sergeant's hand began to go for the Desert Eagle holstered at his side. Then a tremendous explosion rocked the area. The Marines cried out in surprise and rushed for the window, their prisoners forgotten.

"Holy God in Heaven..._what is that_!?" the Sergeant half-demanded, half-screamed. The terror sounded alien in his otherwise calm, hard voice. Something let out an incredibly loud droning sound, like a huge drill. Eric heard the sounds of flames crackling, electricity arcing. Men screamed and machine guns sounded. There were more explosions. The Sergeant and two Marines left the room without a thought for Eric and Allan.

After a moment, Eric rose carefully to his feet. His head still hurt like all hell, but he was at least thinking clearly now. He might not have spat on the Marines if they hadn't almost knocked his head off. He hurried to the window, hands still bound behind his back. Then he saw it. It was like looking at terror itself.

The monster was _huge_, easily twenty feet tall. It seemed to be constructed entirely of blue metal that glinted harshly in the desert sun. It was vaguely humanoid, though the knees were bent backwards, and its head was huge and crested. It raised one arm and a jet of pure white flame shot out, instantly incinerating a squad of Marines firing on it. Eric watched as a jeep with a minigun mounted in the back rolled out and opened fire.

Almost immediately the monster raised its other arm and an electrical pulse shot out, crossing the distance in almost no time flat. The Jeep was picked up and thrown across the airfield. Eric recognized that it was time to go. He turned around and something caught his eye, something glinting in the sunlight. The keys to his handcuffs.

"Oh, give me a break," he muttered, walking over to the table, turning around and grabbing them. He spent a moment getting the right key in the lock and twisted it, releasing the cuffs. Then he hurried over to Allan and knelt, freeing him.

"Come on, get up, Allan. I'm not leaving you here," he muttered, shaking the medic. Allan was just beginning to come around when the door to the office burst open. Marines burst in, weapons drawn. Eric froze, abruptly coming to terms with the fact that his escape was to be cut short. He prepared himself to go down fighting.

"Wait!" one of them shouted. He walked towards Eric while another went to the window. "My name's Sergeant Walker. We're here to rescue you," he said.

"Bullshit," Eric snarled. "I saw what you assholes have been doing."

"We're not with them. We're trying to help the Black Mesa personnel."

"Sarge, we really don't have time for this," the Marine at the window said. "I don't know _what_ that thing is but it's tearing through everyone down there." Walker sighed, reached for his pistol and took it out of the holster. He flipped out around, handle first, to Eric.

"A sign of good faith. We have an exit strategy," he said. Eric considered it briefly. He was unarmed, injured and outnumbered. Either way, he was going to have to trust these guys. There were no other options. He took the pistol.

"Fine, let's go," he said. Walker seemed relieved. He helped Eric and Allan to their feet and the whole lot of them left the office and made their way down a short corridor to a stairwell. Eric realized that they had been taken to the control tower where the Marines had set up shop. He thought of Steven and all that blood. It made him feel sick with guilt. But he shoved it aside, there was no time for that now. Maybe later.

They hurried down the stairs, listening to the chaos of battle. Eric figured the Marines were going to lose this particular battle and couldn't muster any sympathy for them. As they reached the ground floor, Walker held up his fist, freezing everyone in place. Someone was shouting orders nearby, then there were running boots. Finally, the sound fell away. He lowered his fist and they kept moving, descending another level deeper.

"This is your escape plan?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, we were nearby when we picked up radio chatter that some prisoners had been captured. We were going to infiltrate the area. In all this chaos, no one knows how many Marines have gone rogue or who."

"That's because we are the _only ones_ to go rogue!" one of the other Marines shouted. Walker spun on his heel suddenly and pointed a finger directly into the man's face.

"Enough, Lynch!" He turned back to Eric and Allan and they came to a halt in a back room in the basement. It had an elevator. "We were going to rescue whoever it was and slip out this way. We got a map of the area. There's a partially converted cave system down here. It was supposed to be used for storage but it seems they gave up."

One of the Marines got the elevator open and everyone crowded. It was strained, silent and cramped inside as the lift began to descend. Eric's mind was whirling, wondering if Walker was on the level. He seemed like it, but-

The elevator suddenly stopped. Started again. Stopped...

Then it fell.

* * *

"How long until he wakes up?"

"I don't _know_. He might have a concussion."

"If he doesn't wake up soon, we're leaving him."

"We are _not_ leaving him, Lynch."

Eric groaned and came awake for a third time that day. He opened his eyes and found himself staring up at Allan and two of the Marines. Walker and Lynch. Lynch saw that he woke up, muttered something and walked off.

"Eric...follow my finger," Allan said. Eric did as he was told, focusing through the haze of pain that now wracked his entire body. After a few moments, Allan seemed satisfied. "Lucky. As. Hell," he declared. "No concussion. Though I _would_ like access to an MRI."

"Yeah, first thing on the list, doc. You alright, Eric?" Walker asked, offering a helping hand. Eric took it, though he swayed when he got to his feet.

"Need to sit down," Eric managed, his world swinging violently. They led him to a crate where he sat heavily and closed his eyes for a few moments. He could hear the others moving around, and somewhere water was dripping and echoing. He remembered what Walker said about the cave. Finally, he opened his eyes.

"How long has it been since the lift crashed?" he asked.

"About half an hour," Allan replied. He nodded and looked at Walker.

"What's the plan?"

"It's a little loose at the moment, admittedly. It seems that elevator was the only legitimate way out of here. And they didn't bother to build a ladder yet. _However_, it seems there's a somewhat more...illegitimate way out of here. The cave is partially flooded and the map of the area _does_ show a tunnel. It's about thirty feet long. The only thing is, I don't know what's on the other side," Walker explained.

"So there could be _nothing_ over there?" Eric asked.

"Oh, no. I mean...there's _something_ over there. Something built. We just don't know what. It wasn't marked on our map." Eric sighed and rubbed at is temples, which felt like they had been reattached with roofing nails.

"Before we go on, I suppose proper introductions should be made," he said. "And maybe a bit of explaining."

"I agree." Walker called over the others. Eric and Allan introduced themselves. They already knew Sergeant Walker, who looked to be in his early thirties. Like all the others, he wore a high-and-tight haircut. He seemed dangerously competent and his eyes were alight with a sharp intelligence and fierce passion. Corporal Lynch, who had been in such vehement disagreement with them since the get-go, was younger, maybe a year or two younger than Eric. He was thinner and looked like he could move faster, and he wore a perpetual scowl.

Corporal Miller struck Eric as a very common soldier. He was young, fit and competent. His responses were quick and sharp, and he seemed to have a great respect for Walker. Though Eric supposed there would have to be more to him if he were following a man like Walker directly against the tide. PFC Stafford looked to be the oldest, with maybe a few years on Walker. He had an easy smile and wore the patch of a medic. The final member of the group was Private Campbell, who looked to be about as green as grass.

He seemed like he'd rather be anywhere else than here. Eric didn't blame him, but he did feel better about their predicament. These men, with the possible exception of Lynch, seemed to be on the level.

"So what's the story? How much do you guys know? Why'd you break orders?" Eric asked. Walker frowned sharply.

"We didn't, not at first. We were shot down before our orders could come in. I was the only one in my squad to survive, and some scientists pulled me from the wreckage. When I woke up, I was in a medical ward. There were a lot of others, scientists, security guards, and these guys. They had been shot down and rescued as well. We were hardly getting back on our feet when the damned things started swarming us, teleporting in. We fought, but we had to retreat. By the time we made it somewhere safe, it was only the five of us.

"We started making our way through the facility, trying to get in contact with someone, but we couldn't find any working radios. We linked up with a group of security guards who said they were heading to a communications facility. Then we ran into other Marines. They blew away the security guards, and...we fired back on them. We killed them all. Managed to get a working radio off of one of them and figured out the orders...

"Shoot to kill. _All_. Monsters _and_ personnel. It was a sweep-and-clear operation. Command would only accept one hundred percent casualties of all monsters and men and women working for Black Mesa. I refused to accept that...and we've been on the run ever since." Walker told his tale. Eric felt a bitter grief for these men.

"Have you run into any other rogue squads?" he asked finally.

"No," Walker admitted reluctantly. "But I can't believe that _all_ the Marines would agree to this wholesale slaughter so easily."

"What's your endgame?" Allan asked.

"I don't know. We're murderers. Maybe go to Mexico or something. Get lost. Now...you tell me what's up with the monsters. You must know _something_," Walker replied. Allan filled the Marines in as they walked for the underground lake. By the time they reached it, all conversation had ceased. Eric looked at the water unhappily. It was dark and flat, like black glass. He knew how to swim, he was pretty good at it, actually.

But still...there was something ominous about it.

"Is everyone ready?" Walker asked. "Once we start, we don't stop." There were a string of affirmative replies with varying degrees of apprehension. Walker jumped in first, then Lynch. Eric went next, and Allan was behind him. They kept their heads above the water until they came to the other end of the cave. Eric held his breath and went down. The Marines had flashlights mounted on the end of their machine guns, which helped light the way somewhat. He spied the tunnel and began making for it as quickly as he could.

The going was sluggish, but honestly faster than Eric anticipated. He'd made it about halfway through the tunnel when he began to feel confident that he'd make it without too much trouble. He glanced behind him to see how the others were doing. Allan was right on his heels, with the other three Marines spread out behind him. Eric began to turn back around. Then he saw it. Something dark, ominous and most certainly lethal.

He began pointing. Allan caught sight of him and turned curiously around. Then he faced forward and began swimming violently. What happened next happened so fast Eric almost missed it. What appeared to be an _enormous_ shark of some kind surged forward, grabbing one of the Marines, whichever poor bastard had the misfortune of being last, in its great jaws. He began screaming silently, bubbles escaping his mouth.

Right before Eric turned back, he saw the man reach for his belt and grab something. Eric had just made it out of the tunnel and surface, gasping for breath, when an explosion sounded. Then another. And a third.

"What happened?!" Walker demanded.

"Something big," Eric said, still gasping for breath. "It ate one your guys. Dunno who. Whoever was last. I think he activated his grenades, and-ah! Shit!" As the others began surfacing, Eric suddenly felt a shooting pain in his leg. He reached down and then terror sized him as he found something attached to his leg. Something long and slender and slimy.

"Out of the water!" he shouted, tearing it off, which caused even more pain. "Get out of the water!" Everyone scrambled out of the water towards a pair of ladders attached to a platform at the far side of the lake. They spent a few minutes cursing and pulling off what appeared to be oddly colored, big leeches. Allan began applying quick patch-jobs with gauze and antiseptics.

"So who was it?" Eric asked.

"Miller," Walker said quietly. "It was Miller. Poor bastard. He was a damned good soldier."

Allan finished up with the patch-jobs. They held a moment of silence for Miller, then the group began to make their way deeper into the cave complex.


	11. Lethargy

_**Chapter 11  
**-Lethargy-_

They found an elevator, piled in and rode it up silently. Eric found himself praying that this one wouldn't go plummeting to the earth. He also found himself almost dead on his feet. His head ached with nearly migraine levels of pain and his body wasn't doing much better. His small meal in the warehouse office seemed like a million years ago. That made him think of Steven, and some small part of him was glad that he hadn't tried to play the jerk for much longer and had managed to go out on at least somewhat amiable terms with the guy.

He made himself focus as the elevator came to a halt. The doors opened, revealing a dank, dimly lit storage room. They moved through it and two others before they finally came to something different. The Marines went out first, securing the flickering, bloodied lobby beyond. From a cursory glance, it seemed to Eric that they had come to some kind of administrative area. He spied a fountain, (the water stained with blood), in the center of the lobby and generic paintings hung on the wall. The area was clear, save for some dead scientists and security guards.

Eric had managed to hang onto his Desert Eagle, but he knew he'd feel more comfortable with a wider arsenal. He began searching one of the blue-suited security guard corpses. While he found that someone had already done the deed for him, he did notice something interesting. The guard had Level Five security clearance.

"Huh..." Eric said.

"What?" Walker asked, a little sharply.

"This guard, he's got Level Five Clearance. I actually didn't know it even went that high. I'm a Level Two myself, and I know a few Threes, and I've _heard_ of Fours...but Fives? Where are we?" he asked, looking around.

"We're going to find out, come on," Walker replied. Eric nodded, slightly sullen that he hadn't found anymore weapons. They left the lobby, strolling down a long corridor. Doorways were cut into both sides of the hallway, each one leading to an office. They finally came to another, much larger room with staircases hugging the walls to either side of them, ascending up to a second story. The bottom floor had nothing but a couple of break rooms and bathrooms. Upstairs, they found some more offices, a meeting room and a very important looking elevator.

"Looks like it's the only way out of here," Stafford reported after scouting out the area. All the rooms were empty of anything useful, including people that might be still alive. The battle had come and gone here long ago. They opened up the elevator and studied their options. They could go down, or they could go one level up...which required a special access keycard.

"Guess we should head down," Eric said.

"I don't think so," Walker replied, pulling out a blue and red keycard. He fed it into the slot and there was a short chime. The doors closed and the elevator began to ascend. "Got if off a dead guard. Something about this place smells of secrets, and if there's a chance we can get a better look at what's worth all this killing, I'd feel better taking that chance."

Eric found that he didn't exactly disagree with Walker. While his primary goal was survival...he found that he was also intensely curious about the hidden, inner workings of Black Mesa. Clearly they'd been doing _something_, and he still bought Allan's theories, but he wanted to know more. There _had_ to be more to it.

The lift came to a halt. The doors opened to reveal a sterilized, white-tiled, wipe-clean environment. It seemed to be a very stripped-down lobby and entryway into what Eric assumed were going to be laboratories of some kind. The lights were very bright and everything smelled of antiseptic. They crossed the lobby, stepping over the lonely corpse of a headless scientist and moved through the doors at the back.

There, they found an antechamber branching off into three areas. Each area was conveniently labeled. The first led to _Medical Wing_, the second to _Specimen Storage_, the third to _Bio-Research_. Eric had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Oh, crap," he muttered.

"Jackpot," Walker said with a fierce grin. "We'll take it one wing at a time. I want to see Specimen Storage first."

He fed the keycard through the slot and the door chimed open. They came into a long corridor with windows and doors set into the length of metal wall on either side of them. They walked up to the first window and stared inside. There was a small lab beyond, most of it seemed to be taken up by steel and glass cages mounted on the far wall. There were a few tables, chairs and computer terminals set up. Most of the cages were broken, though one still contained a Bullsquid. It thrashed its tail angrily and bumped against the glass casing when it saw them.

The team moved silently down the corridor. It didn't get better. In another lab they found a cluster of Headcrabs locked away in cat carriers. In another they found a larger room where barnacles were clustered along the ceiling. Near the end of the corridor, they found another two rooms. The first one was marked _Vortigaunt Holding_.

"What's a Vortigaunt?" Walker asked, trying the word out slowly. Eric spied the corpse of an Alien Slave in one of the holding chambers.

"Looks like it's our Alien Slave," Allan murmured.

"Oh, those things? We called them Zappers," Stafford said. "Why do you call them Alien Slaves?"

"Have you ever seen the green shackles around their wrists and neck?" Eric asked. The Marines shook their heads. "Well, they're there. I think it helps something control them."

"Like what? I mean...could it be _us_ controlling them?" Walker asked.

"In its own way, it's a tempting thought...but no. For one, I don't believe we have that level of technology yet, and for two...be honest. If it was us, those manacles would be bar-coded," Eric replied. Walker seemed to consider it.

"Maybe..." he said finally. "I guess it doesn't matter either way right now. Come on, let's check out the last one and then move on to Bio-Research."

The last room contained only a single, huge, reinforced cage that had been broken open with what appeared to be brute force. While it certainly wasn't big enough to contain the terrifying blue titan Eric had seen earlier, it still looked big enough to hold something really nasty. The others stared at the cage for a while.

"What the hell was in this one?" Campbell whispered.

"I don't know but I've got a bad feeling we're going to be finding out sooner rather than later," Walker muttered grimly. "Come on, let's check out the rest of the lab."

It got worse. The Bio-Research wing was little more than a great many examination tables stained with multi-colored blood. It was obvious that a great deal of dissection had gone on. All manner of equipment and tools were spread out across tables and counters and shelves.

"Maybe the Marines didn't have the wrong idea," Walker murmured.

"What?" Eric asked.

"Look at this place! It's like a nightmare in here..."

"Now, hold on. That's completely unfair. You really think the government was right to send _execution squads_ in here? On a very basic level, we've got due process. On a higher level, men like myself and Eric here, the _majority_ of the people stationed at Black Mesa, had literally no idea this was going on. Okay, maybe myself and some others had _some_ idea, but you get my point. _We do not deserve to be put down like sick dogs_," Allan said coldly.

"Alright, alright. Fair enough. Forget I said anything. You're right," Walker replied with a sigh. The others kept silent. Besides the horror of the truth that the Black Mesa scientists had been researching the creatures for days, weeks or even months before the invasion, there was nothing of genuine use in the Bio-Research wing. They moved on to the medical wing, locking down the other two wings firmly behind them.

They found the medical wing largely intact and abandoned. No survivors. No enemies. It seemed as if the scientists had just fled when the attack happened. The survivors gathered in one of the infirmaries and were preparing to plan the next step when Eric spoke up.

"Walker. Look. I'm all for pushing on but...I'm going to be totally honest here. I need a break. A real break. I need some sleep. I need to eat and take a piss and get my wounds healed up. Hell, I think there might even be showers in here. This place is abandoned and apparently off the radar. I vote we hole up here and recharge," he said.

Walker looked at him for a long moment, then looked at the others. There was silence in the ranks. Eric figured they might've felt the same way he did, but didn't want to let it be known one way or the other.

"You make a good point, Eric," he said finally. "We'll make camp here for now. Scout the area again, and stay sharp. These assholes can teleport...but this area _does_ look dead. Split up, find whatever food, water, weapons and medical supplies you can. We're going to set up camp here, in this medical wing, for eight hours, then move out."

There were a string of affirmative replies. The men split up. Time passed. They raided whatever mini-fridges they could find, which Eric was beginning to think of the _only_ things that had food in them. They found medical supplies but no weapons. As luck would have it, the medical wing did come equipped with a genuine shower room, presumably for the scientists to wash off anything they may have gotten on them while dissecting aliens.

Once they had gathered up everything they thought they could use, Eric went into the locker room. He broke into whatever lockers he could and managed to salvage new clothes. There weren't any security guard outfits, but at this point Eric didn't care. He figured he could make due with a black t-shirt sporting a KoЯn logo and a pair of jeans. He gathered this up, stripped of his clothes and brought his Desert Eagle into the shower with him.

The experience was like Heaven on Earth after all the crap he'd been through. Besides the pure physical pleasure of the warm water cascading down his body, the psychological boost of washing away all the dirt and blood and sweat was wonderful. He spent as long as he could get away with, cleaning his wounds with water as hot as he could stand it and getting the blood out of his hair, which had long since crusted over.

Before the shower was over, Eric lucked out and spied an electric razor on the little shelf in the stall with him. He took it, turned it on and buzzed his hair away, bringing it down to little more than stubble. Eric had always found that getting a haircut seemed to help him focus and give him greater mental clarity. That, and, well, it seemed like the logical thing to do. Less chance of someone, or something, getting hold of him by the hair.

He finished washing up and toweled off, ignoring the others who showered in the other stalls in a way that he had picked up in bootcamp. He went back to the locker room and slipped on his boxers but nothing else. He padded out into the infirmary, shivering slightly. Black Mesa might be being overrun by military assholes and malignant monsters, but that didn't stop the air conditioning from turning on.

He found Allan and had him go over his body for any and all wounds. Allan did so professionally, after he finished up with Campbell, who had taken something of a beating at some point. Allan cleaned and wrapped all the wounds he found. He spent longer than Eric would have preferred on his wounded bicep.

"How is it?" Eric asked. Allan was sewing it back together with stitches.

"I don't see any sign of infection, but you're moving around so much that the cuts aren't really getting a chance to start coming back together. So I'm going to use stitches. Hopefully they won't pop during combat," Allan replied.

"Hey, I've got a dumb question. Why the hell aren't you using any of those nanothings on us? I see a box of them right over there."

"That was the first thing I checked. They've been emptied. All of them have."

"Oh."

Allan finished up and gave him a general anti-viral/antibiotic injection, followed by a painkiller injection. Eric finished dressing, feeling a world better than he had before. He sorted through the food they'd salvaged and grabbed a bottle of water, a bag of chips, a fruit cup and a sandwich. The sandwich turned out to be mayo, cheese and turkey, which was fine by him. He tried to savor it, now that he had some time, but before he knew it the food was gone.

He waited for the others to finished showering, eating and getting medical attention. It didn't take too long.

"Alright," Walker said. "Myself, Eric and Lynch will take first watch. Four hours. Allan, Stafford and Campbell, get some sleep. You've got second watch."

They managed to find some hospital issue blankets and pillows in some of the storage cabinets. Allan, Stafford and Campbell made themselves beds on the examination tables, which were at least padded, and were asleep almost right away.

"I'm going on patrol," Lynch said, and left before Walker could reply. He and Eric watched the man go. Walker sighed heavily.

"He's a really crappy Corporal," he muttered. "But a good Marine, unfortunately." The two of them retreated to the far side of the infirmary and sat down on the ground. A long moment of uncomfortable silence passed between them. Finally, Eric decided to speak up. He didn't plan on sitting here for four hours in silence.

"I was in the Corps, you know," he said.

"I kinda figured," Walker replied. "Ever since picking you two up...I mean, Allan is no Marine. Don't get me wrong, for a doctor making the slow burn into middle-age, he's doing _great_. But you...you've got that air about you. Training. I haven't seen you fight yet, but when I do, I'm willing to bet you could hold your own with us...so what happened?" Eric sighed softly and thought for a long moment, considering his words.

He told roughly the same story to Walker that he had told Allan and Steven. About Iraq and his crappy Sergeant. Walker seemed to consider this for a while.

"I was in Iraq, too, you know. Just got back last month, actually. Went back home to see the wife and kid..." There was something in his voice. Eric wasn't sure what, exactly, only that it made him uncomfortable.

"And you got called into this mess?" he asked after a long moment. Walker nodded. They sat in a long quiet after that.

Eric suppressed a sigh, it was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Wake up, meat."

Eric's eyes snapped open. He glanced up at who had awoken him and found it to be Lynch. He still looked angry. Eric sighed and sat up, rubbing at his eyes. He was still pretty tired, but the adrenaline had kicked him awake pretty hard. He stood and looked around. He was pleased to find that the room wasn't on fire, they weren't being invaded by monsters, everyone wasn't dead...everything looked more or less how it should.

The others were getting ready. Eric made for the bathroom, taking a long piss and then splashing his face with cold water several times. He came back out to find Walker rallying the others. The Sergeant waved him over.

"I've got good news. Stafford managed to get into contact with a group of scientists and security guards who say they're in process of setting up an anti-teleportation field in their lab and, potentially, the entire facility. They're willing to grant us amnesty and help us try to figure out a solution to our problem of survival. We're going to have to make our way through another office complex and administrative area, as well as heading down through a coolant storage facility, but it shouldn't be too hard of a slog. Is everyone ready?"

There were a string of affirmative replies.

They headed out.


	12. Situational Deterioration

_**Chapter 12  
**-Situational Deterioration-_

"So...don't get me wrong, I like this Desert Eagle, it's a step up from the Glock I was holding onto...but could I maybe get some more ammo for it?" Eric asked. They were riding the elevator down this time, heading for the level below the labs and the administrative level they'd arrived at. Walker sighed and handed over two clips of ammo.

"Thanks," Eric said, pocketing them.

"Make them last. We don't know how long it's going to be before we find more ammo," Walker replied.

The elevator came to a halt. The doors dinged open. They were admitted to a devastated lobby. The men spread out from the elevator, securing the area. Eric peered cautiously through a broken window in the wall. He was given a bleak view of a flickering break room. The vending machines had been shattered by gunfire, their candy and soda content spread across the floor. A pair of Zombie corpses lay limp and lifeless across the room, half-hidden in shadows. Eric checked behind the security desk in the lobby, finding nothing.

They moved on, checking out the peripheral rooms: the break room and a bathroom, before moving on to a large antechamber that led to the rest of the complex. It was clear that a tremendous battle had taken place here. A half dozen Marine corpses were littered across the floor and...

"What the _hell_ is that?" Walker asked. Eric stared at the enormous corpse that lay in the center of the area. It lay on its back. It reminded him of a Vortigaunt. Though it was different in several key ways. It was shaped a lot more like a man, though the legs were still bent back. Its limbs were as thick as tree trunks and a shiny black armor covered its head and shoulders.

"I think this is what was in that tank upstairs," Allan murmured.

"Damn. This is one nasty, mean bastard. What's that on its hand?" Stafford asked. They all studied the bulky, three-pronged thing that seemed attached to its wrist. It seemed organic...but also had a manufactured look to it.

"Might be a weapon," Walker said. "This thing, this...Alien Grunt, for lack of a better term, is bad news. Everything else we've seen might've been the initial invasion force, like sending the scouts and the dogs forward first...and now we're starting to see the Grunts, the main infantry. This whole thing might be a whole lot harder a whole lot faster."

"Fantastic," Eric grumbled. Almost immediately, they began to hear heavy footfalls. "Oh crap," he whispered.

"Get into position-" Walker began, but it was too late. A pair of doors suddenly exploded inward to admit a living version of the Alien Grunt on the ground. It didn't hesitate for a second, raising the arm with the weapon attached to it and firing. The next sound that Eric heard, as he dove for cover, was a confusing one. It resembled that of a bee, or a wasp, though only vaguely, as if the sound had been fed through a computer and mechanized.

He felt something come dangerously close to his head as he landed. Eric fired almost blindly into the huge thing, seeing a few of his bullets connected and make miniature explosions of blood and gore. The others were firing and screaming with the raw fury of the battle as the bloodlust took them. Someone threw a grenade. Eric rolled away, looking for somewhere to hide, but the room was too wide, too open.

He faced away from the monster and the grenade, curling up into a ball. A second later the explosion ruptured and he felt an uncomfortable heat pass over him. But that was it. Eric rolled over and looked on in terror as he realized that it was still standing. Everyone seemed to be frozen, waiting for the next thing to happen.

Then the Alien Grunt fell forward with a heavy crash that was numbed by Eric's nearly-deafened ears. He let out a long sigh of relief as he got back to his feet. They all cautiously gathered around the corpse.

"Did you see what was coming out of its gun-hand?" Campbell asked, his voice a terrified whisper.

"No, I missed it," Eric murmured. "I was diving for cover. Felt it, though."

"It was like...bees," Walker said. "It was shooting yellow blurs. Like big bullets. And they _curved_. They _followed_ us. Did anyone get hit?" Somehow, no one had. Eric counted it as a miracle. To be sure that it was dead, Eric shot it twice in its ugly, alien face. Then they split up and began to do a field-search of the Marines.

Eric managed to secure another couple of clips for his Desert Eagle, grab a combat knife with a sheath that he attached to his belt and one of the machine guns the Marines had been using. He realized it was an MP5. He grabbed a couple of spare clips and was trying out aiming and moving with the weapon when Walker approached him. He was carrying one of the vests the Marines were all wearing. He tossed it to Eric, who caught it.

"Powered Combat Vest. It'll stand up to a hell of a lot more than that piece of crap flak jacket you're wearing," he said. Eric studied it for a moment, then shrugged, took off his bulletproof vest and slipped on the PCV. There was a brief moment of tension as it seemed to stiffen, then it formed against him, fitting snugly without being too tight.

"Wow, nice," he murmured.

"Brand new to the Hazard Environment Combat Unit. Top of the line, state of the art. Hope you like it," Walker replied.

"I think I will." After a moment's consideration, Walker passed him two more things: grenades. Standard issue fragmentation grenades.

"Remember how to use these?" he asked. Eric laughed easily.

"Pull pin, throw. Four second fuse, blast radius...yada yada yada. Yeah, I remember Basic," he replied, staring at them. Walker nodded and slapped him on the back.

"Glad to have you with us," he said. It seemed like he wanted to say more, but had said all he was comfortable with, and left. Eric attached the grenades to the combat vest, ready for use, and practiced with the machine gun again. It had been a while since he'd put one to use and the last time he had, it had been an M-16A. He was momentarily curious about the MP5, as it wasn't exactly standard issue for the Marines, then he shrugged it off.

A machine gun was a machine gun.

"Alright!" Walker called. "Let's get to it!"

The office complex was a nightmare. Almost immediately they found themselves knee-deep in the undead. Zombies. Nearly a dozen and a half of them swarmed out of the cubicles, stumbling and groaning towards them with too-long arms and claws. The stench of cordite and old blood filled the air. The machine gun rattled in Eric's hands as he sighted a trio of Zombies coming for him and let them have it, stitching a bloody line across the white and red torn, button-down shirt of the former scientist coming for him.

He emptied the clip putting them down, continuing to get back into the groove of firing a machine gun. Eric reloaded and put a few more down. The team made quick work of the Zombies. Eric fell back into the pattern of being in a squad of Marines with surprising ease and Allan did a pretty good job for having never had any formal training. He began to feel real hope. He, Allan and the Marines murdered their way through the office complex. They ducked, fired and executed anything that came for them.

They reached the elevator and rode it down a level to the administration wing. A pair of Bullsquids waited for them in the lobby and Eric narrowly avoided getting burned while Walker and Stafford put down the monsters. The administration wing was a complete mess. It was obvious that the Marines had tried to establish some kind of basecamp here, but it had gone horribly wrong. Blood and bullet holes tattooed the walls. Corpses and spent shell casings carpeted the floor. Broken light fixtures and terminals bled blue-white sparks.

The team gathered up whatever ammo they came across. They dispatched a pack of Houndeyes, murdered Zombies and Headcrabs and avoided Barnacles wherever they saw them. Eric kept expecting another Alien Grunt to be around the next corner, but there appeared to be none holed up in the administration wing. Vortigaunts, either, which began to make Eric suspicious. He brooded over this fact as they reached the maintenance lift.

"What's wrong?" Allan asked as they plummeted deeper into the earth.

"There were no higher-ups in there," Eric replied.

"'Higher-ups'?" Walker asked.

"Alien Grunts. Vortigaunts. Just the animals." The men were silent for a moment, considering this.

"So what do you think it means?" Campbell asked nervously.

"I don't know...maybe...maybe they're busy with something else. I suppose they could have just called that area clear and be done with it. But you'd think they'd have at least left a guard or two. I guess those two Alien Grunts could count...I don't know. Call me paranoid, but I just feel like something's off."

"You're paranoid," Lynch said. "They're just aliens, man. Just friggin' monsters." Eric glanced sharply at him, suddenly angry.

"_Never_ underestimate your enemies. Christ, I remember assholes like you, Lynch. Macho meatheads who couldn't get enough of themselves. I bet you're the kind of jerkoff who'd sleep with a passed out girl at a party and say it was her fault."

For a long moment, no one spoke, then Lynch tried to take a step forward in the crowded elevator. Walker put a restrictive hand on his shoulder.

"Lynch, take Bishop's advice and don't underestimate these alien assholes. Bishop, shut up. Things are tense enough as it is," he said. Both men remained silent. Eric knew he was being an asshole, but couldn't help it. He _had_ met a lot of guys like Lynch. Guys who didn't know when to keep their mouths shut. Guys who beat the crap out of a civvie in a bar for _looking at him wrong_. Arrogant jerks who thought they were the dominate life form and actually bought into stupid concepts like the Alpha Male.

The elevator came to a halt. The doors opened. The men spilled out, securing the concrete room of steam pipes and gauges beyond. It was obvious the Marines had been here, too. A trio of tables were set up against the far wall. Partially-disassembled weapons, gear and equipment were spread out across the tabletops.

"Hey, check it out. A radio," Stafford said, approaching it. Eric studied it. The radio looked basically like a metal box with a few antenna sticking out of the top and a screen embedded in the front. Stafford fiddled with it for a while with the others tried to scavenge ammo or equipment from the scattered parts.

"Hey...I got something," he said. They all gathered around to listen.

_"__This __is__ Obsidian Team Leader, we have landed. We are in position by the garages, preparing to move in and exterminate targets. We need reconfirmation on targets."_ The voice was cold and almost metallic, but the voice that responded was several degrees closer to absolute zero.

_"This is Command. _All_ targets are to be considered hostile and to be eliminated with extreme prejudice."_

_ "Reconfirm: all targets including United States Marine Corp, HECU personnel are to be eliminated?"_

_ "Confirmed, Obsidian Team Leader."_

_ "Affirmative. Out."_

"You have _got _to be shitting me!" Lynch cried. He suddenly spun on Walker, finger extended, pointed directly into his face. "This is _your_ fault! If you hadn't gone rogue we'd still be able to walk out of here and keep ours jobs! Now we're going to get murdered by a bunch of Black Ops assholes!" he screamed. Walker suddenly smacked Lynch's finger out of his face and shoved him, hard, against the nearest wall.

"Get a goddamn grip on yourself, Corporal," he growled, his voice low and threatening. "Don't be an idiot. One rogue team, even a handful of them, isn't going to warrant Black Ops troops raining down death on _all _the Marines at Black Mesa. We aren't important enough. It's obvious that they think we couldn't do the job, _as a whole_, and it'd be easier to just wipe us _all_ out. In fact, I'd say we have a leg up on them since we went rogue. Because if we hadn't, we'd be welcoming them with open arms in just the same way the Black Mesa personnel were welcoming the Marines with open arms...and getting mowed down."

Walker turned and walked away from Lynch, looking around the bunker-like room they'd come to for a few seconds. Lynch stood his ground, staring malevolently at his Sergeant.

"You know what I think you're problem really is, Lynch? You just can't stand the idea that your own government would turn on you at the drop of a hat. Now, move out."

They left the area, preparing themselves for more blood and terror. Immediately, Eric could tell that they were in the right area. They came to an enormous room of concrete and steel. They were high up on a gridwork of rickety catwalks. Below, Eric could see a huge collection metal drums lined up in neat rows amidst a ground lost in darkness. They had made it maybe halfway across the catwalk when the sounds of conflict came up at them.

Everyone froze, preparing for a nightmare of a battle, until they realized it was taking place far below them. Eric stared down, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Mostly it was just flashes of energy, some green, some yellow. No bullets, no explosions.

"What...what's happening?" Allan asked.

"Friendly fire?" Walker suggested uncertainly.

"Whatever it is, let's let them deal with it. We should get off this catwalk," Eric replied. There was a general murmur of agreement and they pressed on. They passed through the door at the other end of the catwalk and came to a room that seemed to be composed almost entirely of pipes. Eric was just taking into account the fact that there were three large, broad doorways set into the walls when a quartet of Alien Grunts rushed them.

Eric hardly had time to squeeze the trigger before he felt things smashing into his combat vest. He stitched a bloody line up the nearest Grunt and heard the others opening fire as well. He backpedaled, trying to get to a more defensible position, as he kept firing. Before long his gun was clicking empty. He cursed and grabbed one of the grenades, tore the pin out with his teeth and tossed it. The small killing device landed at the feet of one of the Grunts, who promptly ignored it...until it exploded.

The fragments made an ugly mess out of its front side and the thing toppled over backwards, struggling weakly. Eric hastily reloaded, dodging the bullet-bees to the best of his ability. He snapped the second to last clip in and emptied it, spraying the Grunts' position with gunfire. As he slammed his last clip in, the final alien fiend fell.

"Goddamn," Stafford whispered. "Anyone hit?" Everyone reported no lethal hits, though Campbell and Allan had been grazed. Eric studied his combat vest. There were several indents in the armor, but it seemed as if all the little bullet-bees had been absorbed. He shrugged it off and took the job of scouting one of the tunnels. He headed out, keeping the MP5 ready for action. The tunnel was broad, but squat, just barely big enough to admit one of the Alien Grunts. Pipes that dripped condensation ran along the walls and ceiling, and the only light being provided was scarlet and came from naked bulbs in the ceiling.

The tunnel finally ended and opened up to another concrete antechamber. There were three doors out. The first led to the coolant room, the second led to storage and the third led to the Echo Labs Auxiliary Entrance. But that wasn't what held Eric's attention. An Alien Grunt lay dead in the center of the room, but there was something wrong about it. Eric turned and retraced his steps. He met back with the others.

"I hope you found something, Bishop, because those other two tunnels are dead ends," Walker said.

"I found the way out...and something else. You need to come see it," Eric replied.

They followed him back and gathered around the corpse.

"So what's the big deal?" Lynch asked.

"Look. This thing is dead, but not by us. No bullet holes. Just burn marks, singes. Humans didn't kill this bastard. The aliens did," Eric replied.

"So friendly fire then?" Walker asked.

"It's possible, I guess, but...what if it's something more?"

"Like what?"

"Not sure. But this may be to our advantage. What if there's some rogue squadrons of Vortigaunts? Or hell, maybe the scientists found a way to use the alien weaponry. Or...I dunno...what if a whole new player just entered the game?" There was silence for a moment.

"That'd make it a hell of a lot more interesting," Walker said finally. "We'd have Black Mesa personnel, the HECU, Black Ops, the aliens...and another set of aliens?" He let out a long whistle. "Hell of a battlefield...but come on, we need to get up to Echo Labs and figure out what's what." Eric agreed and they left the Alien Grunt corpse behind, entering the tunnel that would ultimately take them to their destination.

They had nearly made it when there was a jarring sound of electricity and Eric felt a sharp pressure in his chest. He turned and fired almost without thinking, spraying the right side of the dingy elevator lobby with gunfire. Something screamed and he caught sight of a very tall, lithe creature with blue-gray skin. He kept up the fire until his clip was nearly half-dry, then it crashed to the ground in a spray of blood.

"Holy shit..." Walker said, coming in with the others. Eric had taken point with a vengeance, it seemed. They slowly approached the creature. All at once, Eric felt that this is what had killed the Alien Grunt, what had been on the other end of that firefight in the coolant room. And that it was fundamentally different from the Alien Grunts and the Vortigaunts. Where they were bulky and dark green, these things were tall, more athletically built and light blue-gray. They seemed to be a different race entirely. That, and it had four arms.

Eric did note the thing attached to the end of its right hand. It was longer and sleeker. It was also bleeding. He prodded it with his foot. It jerked and he screamed and shot it.

"Careful, Bishop," Walker said.

"Well...it moved," Eric replied, a little embarrassed.

"Wait, did _it_ move, or did the thing move?"

"_It_ moved. I'm sure of it." Walker moved cautiously over and knelt. He poked it with the tip of his gun. It didn't move. He knelt and grabbed it, pulling it off the larger creature's arm. He studied it for a moment, then gripped it from behind.

"I think there's a trigger or something here..." he murmured. He pointed it towards the far wall and abruptly a spark of white energy shot out the end of it, leaving a smoking singe-mark on the wall. The group made startled and impressed sounds. Walker fired it twice more, then the bolts of energy stopped coming. It leaked more blood now.

"So they're...living guns?" Stafford asked.

"That...is cool," Allan said.

"So what do we call it?" Eric asked.

"Shock Trooper," Walker said, almost immediately, as though it already had a name. He discarded the living gun. "Well, makes the most sense to me, anyway," he added after a moment's silence.

"No, I think it's perfect," Eric replied. "A good name. Now...let's get the hell out of this pit. I hate it down here."

They found the elevator and began the long ascension towards Echo Labs.


	13. Lockdown

_**Chapter 13  
**-Lockdown-_

The elevator doors opened to a scene of bloody chaos.

The auxiliary entrance to Echo Labs was a sterilized white-tiled environment sprayed with blood. A pair of MP5-wielding security guards were hunkered down behind a sturdy-looking desk, fighting off a half-dozen aliens. Two of them were Shock Troopers, the rest were something entirely new, but seemed to working with the Troopers. Eric took a scant few seconds to study them before throwing himself into the battle.

They were short and squat and dark green. They had backwards scythes for hands and seemed to have spikes sticking out of everywhere. A cluster of spikes jutted up from their foreheads, a ridge of them ran down their spines and their mouths seemed to be stuffed full of them. They were spitting dripping spikes across the room at the pinned down security guards. Eric reacted quickly, pulling the pin on his grenade and tossing it while firing the rest of the bullets in his MP5. Within a few seconds, he and his allies wiped out the aliens.

"Well...you must be the cavalry we were looking to escort," one of the guards said as he reloaded and came out from behind the desk.

"I guess so," Walker replied. Quick introductions were made. The two security guards were Harrington and Robins. They both looked grim, exhausted and hard-used.

"This is fun and all, but can we get back to the goddamn secure zone?" Harrington asked. Robins rolled his eyes.

"You'll have to excuse him, he's kind of an asshole," he said as the pair began to lead the group through Echo Labs.

"Yeah, _I'm_ the asshole because I want to hurry this along and every second we waste is bringing us closer to death."

"You've _always_ been an asshole, Harrington. Even before the Resonance Cascade."

"Hold up...Resonance Cascade?" Eric asked.

"I think Doctor Laidlaw should explain that to you. We...aren't so good with words," Robins replied. Harrington snorted.

"Yeah, like he's much better."

They came to the end of the corridor and rode a lift up, made their way down another corridor and finally came to the secure zone. Eric looked around as he felt himself relax slightly. They had come to a room stuffed with all manner of equipment. A ramp across the room led up to a catwalk that ringed the walls, making an impromptu second story. There were a pair of doors in one wall and the way they had come in appeared to be the only way in.

The two doors led to a bathroom and what appeared to be a storage room converted into living quarters. There were a half-dozen cots and some mini-fridges and a microwave. While the Marines spoke with a pair of scientists, Eric relieved himself in the bathroom, then rejoined the group and listened to a portly, balding man in glasses explain what, exactly, had happened. It was complicated, and involved a lot of technical stuff, but what Eric ultimately gleaned from it was that Allan's original explanation had been right.

While screwing around with teleportation technology, the scientists of Black Mesa had accidentally discovered another dimension. Unfortunately for them, the dimension happened to be occupied by malignant aliens.

"And the Shock Troopers?" Eric asked.

"As far as we can tell, the Shock Troopers and the Pit Drones-" Laidlaw began.

"Those were the little jerkoffs you saw us fighting back there by the elevator," Harrington interrupted.

"Yes..." Laidlaw continued. "They belong to another species entirely, what we're calling Race X. Everything else you've seen, the Vortigaunts, the Headcrabs, they all belong to the Xen dimension. They appear to be warring and causing a great deal of trouble for the Black Ops personnel. I admit we were...reluctant to give you directions here, Sergeant Walker."

"I understand. How do you know so much about what's going on?" Walker replied.

"We have a high quality communications network here. We can listen in on a great deal of frequencies."

"Can you tell us what's been happening with the Marines?" Stafford asked.

"Yes. It seems that they attempted to pull out, and some of them did...unfortunately, a great deal have been left behind and are being systematically slaughtered by the Black Ops personnel, the Xen aliens and Race X. Not to mention some of my own brethren here at Black Mesa given our...initial interactions," Laidlaw explained uncomfortably.

"Wish it could've been any other way, doc. All I can tell you is that we never personally killed any personnel. It didn't seem right," Walker said.

"For which I am extremely thankful. Now...I suppose we should get on with the show. Here at Echo Labs, our job was anti-teleportation. Specifically, how to create a field that would neutralize teleportation. We did it, very recently, I might add. However, we only managed to generate a field large enough to cover Echo Labs, and that takes up a great deal of energy. We're currently trying to get it turned on, but in the meantime, we need to have Echo Labs physically locked down. An anti-teleportation field is great...unless the bad guys can just walk in through a door. So you can see why we'd need help," Laidlaw explained.

"So how many are you?" Walker asked. It turned out not very many. Besides Laidlaw, Harrington and Robins, there were three more people. And one of them was unconscious on one of the cots. He'd apparently taken a nasty hit from a Pit Drone. Allan was tending to him. Two more personnel came in and introduced themselves. One was a security guard, though it appeared he had been in charge of security in Echo Labs before the Resonance Cascade. He introduced himself curtly as Sharpio. The second was Laidlaw's assistant, a tall, awkward man in glasses and a stained labcoat who called himself Newell.

"How was your scouting?" Laidlaw asked.

"Good," Sharpio replied. "We managed to get some good weapons." He turned to face Walker. "You and your boys up to a real job?" he asked.

"I'd like to think so," Walker replied, a little defensively.

"Good. It's been tough working with these damned rent-a-cops for so long. Marines aren't at the top of my list, but you'll do," Sharpio replied. He turned and left the room, heading back out the way he'd come in. A moment later he returned with a handful of weapons.

"What's his problem?" Eric asked.

"He's a former Green Beret," Laidlaw replied.

"Oh. Well...glad to have him on our side," Walker said begrudgingly.

"Here's the plan! Listen up!" Sharpio said after returning with another clutch of weapons. "There's two entryways left that haven't been locked down. Walker, you and your men will take the east entrance. I'll show you the route there. Harrington, Robins and Bishop are with me. We'll take the final doorway. Doc, keep working on the device, figure out what the problem is. Everyone else, gear up!" Eric decided to do just that.

His MP5 had run dry and he was pawing through the pile of guns and ammo when something caught his eye. He grinned darkly, abandoned the MP5 and picked up the 249 Squad Assault Weapon. He swung the bulky SAW around, getting a feel for it.

"Sure you can handle that?" Walker asked.

"Almost as sure as I can handle this," Eric replied, grabbing a .357 Magnum from the pile. He loaded up on ammo for the two weapons, and the Desert Eagle. "Man, it feels good to finally be really loaded down with gear. I feel like I could take on a friggin' army," he said, grinning madly at the SAW and Magnum.

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't get too cocky," Walker replied, but he seemed in good spirits. Eric didn't blame him. For once, they had an actual goal, a realistic plan for genuine safety. At least for now. He hoped Laidlaw and Newell had a more long-term plan in mind. If not, well...well, he didn't know what. Eric decided to focus on the immediate task: locking down Echo Labs. He wielded the SAW, finding it heavier than he remembered from his time in the Corps. He was eager to turn it loose against whichever asshole he saw first.

They headed out, heading back to the main antechamber and splitting up. Walker and his Marines went on ahead, while Eric and the other security guards broke left. Eric took up the rear, behind the others, glad for them to take the lead. He was still checking out the SAW when they turned a corner and a blast from the hand-cannon that was a .357 Magnum sounded, followed immediately by a thick spray of something wet and warm.

Eric hardly had time to see Robins' headless corpse slumping to the ground before he leveled the SAW at the squad of what had to be Black Ops soldiers and squeezed the trigger. It made them scatter and dive for cover, giving Harrington and Sharpio enough time to do the same. Eric continued firing until the gun was empty and managed to pump two of the bastards with big, nasty, bloody holes before going for cover himself.

He abandoned the SAW for now, knowing it'd take too much time to reload. Not wanting to lose the initiative, he primed and tossed his last grenade blindly over the overturned table he'd hid behind. They were in a white-tiled lab stuffed with all manner of instrumentation and equipment. Someone shouted and the explosion sounded. Someone began screaming. Eric pulled out the Magnum and decided to get some revenge.

He peered cautiously over the top of the table and spied one of the soldiers breaking from cover. He popped up, leveled the hand-cannon at the man and squeezed the trigger twice. The pistol kicked, _hard_, and opened up a pair of fist-sized holes in the chest of the soldier. Sharpio and Harrington had each grabbed some cover and the next five minutes played out in a glorified game of whack-a-mole. Eric emptied his .357 twice before the last soldier went down and as he reloaded both it and the SAW, he realized his wrists were very sore.

He decided to stick to the Eagle from now on. It had kick, but not like the damned Magnum. He loaded the six-shooter with its last six bullets and settled it back into its holster and then finished up with the SAW.

"Bishop, with me. Harrington, field-search these assholes...and Robins. Ammo and grenades only for right now. We'll get the guns later."

"Got it," Harrington replied crisply, immediately going about his task. Eric followed Sharpio past the Black Ops squad and moved through another laboratory. He spied a large, airlock-style door standing open at the end.

"Cover me," Sharpio murmured. Eric kept his weapon ready. Sharpio peered cautiously into the airlock, then relaxed. He walked over to a control panel and set his gun aside. Working quickly, he sealed the airlock. The large gray door ground firmly into place with a resounding _clang!_ Eric felt a vague sense of relief.

"Let's return to base," he said curtly. Eric nodded. They returned to Harrington, helped him finish the task of gathering the spare clips of ammo and begin making their way back through the white, sterilized corridors.

When they got back to base, there was good news and bad news waiting for them. Mostly it was bad news. Walker reported grimly that Campbell had been shot in the neck and killed by Black Ops personnel who had been trying to infiltrate the labs via the door they were trying to lock down. Sharpio delivered the ugly news about their own loss. And Allan, wiping his bloody hands, reported that the scientist he'd been trying to save had passed away.

"So...tell me you've got some good news for us, doc," Sharpio said, facing the pair of scientists. Newell began laughing. He was chewing on a candy bar.

"You're gonna _hate_ it!" he declared merrily. Sharpio narrowed his gaze at the scientist.

"Doctor Newell, please," Laidlaw said uncomfortably. "The good news is that we have turned on the field. The bad news is that something is draining the power and that we're working on borrowed time. We have maybe forty five minutes before the field collapses. And there's no telling if this field is garnering unwanted attention. If the field collapses it is entirely possible that we could be overrun almost immediately."

"Oh, wonderful," Sharpio grumbled.

"So how do we fix it?" Eric asked.

"The majority of you will have to go down into the sub-lab, where the power center is, with Doctor Newell and escort him to the power junction in question. He knows the way there. Presumably, once he gets there, he'll fix it. Then we'll...figure out what to do from there," Laidlaw explained. Eric glanced around. Walker seemed to be considering. Sharpio was silent. A look passed between them and Sharpio seemed to defer to Walker's judgment.

"Alright," Walker said. "Stafford and Lynch, you two are staying here and guarding Doctor Laidlaw. Bishop, Thompson, Sharpio, Harrington and myself will head down with Newell to figure out what's going on with the power." Sharpio seemed to agree with this silently. There were general murmurs of agreement and the team began to split up. Sharpio knew the way to the elevator, but before they left, Walker nodded for Stafford to come over.

"What's up, Sergeant?" he asked quietly.

"Watch Lynch," Walker replied just as softly. "You feel me?"

"Yeah, I got it. No problem."

"Good. We'll try to be back as soon as we can."

"Good luck."

"You, too."

Eric followed them out of the primary lab towards the lift.


	14. Collapse

_**Chapter 14  
**-Collapse-_

The sub-laboratory was dim. It reeked of death and...something else. Something that Eric couldn't identify, but sent his combat senses on edge. They all stood together in a pool of flickering gray light just beyond the elevator, which was closed behind them. Eric felt a cold tendril of fear settled in his gut.

"This...is not good," he murmured. The entryway turned out to be little more than a cracked concrete room with large, ominous tunnels, broad and wide enough to contain anything, going away from them.

"Which way?" Sharpio growled. Even he sounded tense.

"Straight ahead, basically. It's practically a straight shot all the way to the primary power room," Newell replied.

"Alright. Bishop, you're up front with me. Newell in the middle, Walker and Thompson in the back. Here," he walked over to a locker mounted on the far wall and pulled it open. "Everyone take one, only use if it you have to."

He passed out flashlights. Eric considered how best to use it, and realized the SAW came with an attachment that would allow him to fit the flashlight onto the end of it. He did so, but left it off, then kept the SAW out and ready to use. They plunged into the dimly lit tunnel. The smell grew stronger as they began their trek. Eric continually scanned the area in front of them, peering apprehensively into offshoot tunnels.

He tried to identify the smell. It was very thick and pungent on the air, almost cloying, like walking through soup in zero-gee. It reminded him of decay, of slowly rotting meat, but something else, too. He couldn't put his finger on it. All he knew was that he hated it and it made him incredibly nervous.

They had made it about a hundred feet when Sharpio held up his fist. Everyone froze. They stood at a crossroads of corridors. They could see ahead of them, but to their left and right were pitch-black corridors.

"Someone's following us," Sharpio said after a moment's silence. Eric swallowed nervously. He hadn't heard _anything_. He listened, straining his ears against the silence and the ambient white noise. First, there was nothing. Then he heard it. Or rather, them.

"Zombies!" he cried. They all flicked their flashlights on and pointed them into the dual corridors. Then froze. They weren't Zombies, not quite. They had clearly once been Marines, but they were not normal Zombies. They were at least a foot taller than regular Zombies and much bulkier, with longer arms, longer, razor-sharp claws, and yet the Headcrab in control seemed to be withered, with the skull beneath more clearly visible.

One of them jerked and shot a wad of acidic goo out of its chest. Eric narrowly avoided it and opened fire. The others joined in. Sixty seconds and a couple hundred bullets later, the last Zombie fell. Eric walked up to it while reloading his SAW.

"What...are these things?" he asked.

"I think this is what happens when the Zombie is left alone for enough time. It is a mature Zombie. Obviously, they're more lethal," Newell said, crouching by one and studying it. Eric finished reloading and glanced around. He thought he heard something...

"Oh shit!"

_Something_ came barreling towards them from the blackened tunnel. It was _huge _and almost seemed to resemble a living tank. Like the Headcrabs, it held itself upright on four legs, though its torso sprouted from the center where the four legs converged. It appeared to be a member of Race X. It had two huge, burly arms that ended in scythes and a mouth that resembled that of a Pit Drone. It let out a strangely electronic shriek and abruptly snapped its torso forward. Eric's eyes widened in terror and he threw himself out of the way.

A ball of malignant energy escaped the creature and flew towards them. Eric began firing from his prone position. He heard a sharp zap and felt static electricity shoot through him, and then something wet sprayed his back. He ignored it, concentrating all his fire on the beast. It roared and staggered. Eric emptied his last clip of ammo into the thing, then abandoned it, whipped out his Magnum and blasted the creature with all six shots.

He abandoned that and was drawing his Desert Eagle when he heard a _foomph!_ The whole area lit up as something connected with the beast and exploded. Eric blinked rapidly, trying to clear his eyes. His retinas were seared with an afterimage of the creature highlighted in flames. Someone began to help him up.

"Grenade launcher attachment," Sharpio said as Eric groaned and rubbed his eyes.

"Who bought it?" he asked.

"Harrington. He was...vaporized by that ball of energy," Walker said grimly. Eric sighed. Another one dead. "Everyone else is accounted for," he added. When Eric got his vision back, he grabbed his flashlight off the SAW and they started on again, this time hurrying a little faster. Eric kept glancing over his shoulder, somehow sure that they were still being followed. He glanced back the way they had come again and spied a blur of movement.

"Stop!" Newell cried out abruptly. "We're here," he added.

"What..._is_ this shit?" Allan whispered. Eric was almost gagging. The stench was overpowering now, burning in his nostrils and throat. They area they were in was incredibly dark, almost pitch-black, so he played his flashlight over the walls. There were strange growths all over the place, some of them were dripping, others were oozing mist.

"Alright, so where is it?" Sharpio asked. Newell pointed into a darkened doorway.

"There." Sharpio went first, followed shortly by Eric. Newell came in behind them and Walker lingered in the doorway, guarding their back. There were more growths in the primary power room. They mostly covered the screens and terminals.

"I...am ashamed to admit that I have no idea how to handle this," Newell said after a long moment, staring at the odd green and brown growths. Eric couldn't decide if they were plant life or flesh of some kind.

"So you're telling me it was a waste of time to come down here," Sharpio said.

"Yes."

"Shit. Alright, we need to double back to the primary lab and come up with a new plan. Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

They left the power station and began hurrying back. The way back was even more tension-laden than the way down there. Nothing came out of the darkness for them, and Eric had almost tricked himself into believing that they would get back to the lift without any trouble. Then they got back to the lobby and he caught dark movement off his peripheral. He spun and fired his Eagle, his body reacting faster than his mind could comfortably follow, and there was a spray of blood. A woman's body, wrapped in skin-tight body armor, began falling out of a shadow. Eric had just begun to catch hints of a second figure when someone shoved him out of the way and he was sprayed with blood. He tracked the second figure and emptied the clip.

There was another spray of blood and the second body fell out of the shadows. Time, which seemed to have slowed down for him, sped back up. He scrambled to his feet and felt a cold hand clutch at his heart when he realized the only two left standing were Sharpio and Allan. They were going to kneel over Walker, who was still moving.

"Check on Newell," Sharpio said. Eric nodded, his heart racing. He walked over to the scientist but already saw that he was dead. A perfect black hole, dripping blood, was formed in the center of his forehead. Eric sighed quietly and walked over to Sharpio and Walker.

"What the _hell_ happened?" Eric murmured.

"Those must be the assassins I've been hearing about over the radio. The female portion of Black Ops. They're all assassins, fast and deadly as hell. I'm impressed you managed to take them down, Bishop. Now help me with Walker, he's been shot twice in the stomach," Sharpio explained, helping Walker to his feet.

"Why didn't your combat vest stop it?" Eric asked, slinging one of Walker's arms over him.

"Black Ops has better bullets," Walker replied through gritted teeth. Allan followed behind them as they made for the lift. Eric hit the button with his elbow and when the doors opened they all piled in. Walker breathed heavily, his hands clutched over his guts. There was a lot of blood coming out. Eric began to seriously worry that they'd lose the Sergeant. How could it all have fallen apart so fast? Another _three_ of them dead down there...

The doors opened up. Eric gaped. Any hope he had left promptly fell apart. He stared down the barrels of twin MP5s. Black Ops soldiers, faceless behind masks and goggles, were on the other end of those guns. Behind them, in the primary lab, were another dozen Black Ops men.

"Come on, out of the elevator," one of them said. Slowly, Eric and the others moved out of the lift and into the main lab. Eric spied Laidlaw's body lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Stafford and Lynch were on their knees with their hands behind their heads.

"Drop your weapons," a new voice said. Eric looked at him. He didn't seem physically any different than the others, expect maybe that he was a little smaller than them. But the way he moved, the tone of his voice, it was obvious he was the leader. Eric dropped his Desert Eagle and checked his watch as he did.

There wasn't much time left until the collapse now.

"This one is wounded," one of the soldiers said. Once Walker, Sharpio and Allan had dropped their weapons, they were all shoved to their knees. Eric put his hands behind his head.

"Hmm. Stealth bullets. Ozone, Poet, head downstairs and see if you can find Shadow Element." The two men snapped off curt replies and disappeared into the elevator. The leader walked over to them. He stared down at them from behind his opaque goggles, as faceless as an insect. Eric suspected that he was grinning.

"I've been looking forward to something like this for a long, long time. You Marines...you're so sad. You go through Basic and beat your chests and fire your little guns and think you're at the top of the food chain. I've seen your type, you know, when I'm on leave and go into the cities like a piranha among schools of bass. I've seen your kind, with your locker-room mentality, insisting that you are the 'hardest' in bars and football stadiums, like cavemen." He paused, then he leaned closer, directly into Walker's face.

"Like. Cavemen."

He straightened back up abruptly and snapped his fingers. A .357 Magnum was placed in his waiting hand. He examined it.

"This is such a terribly unsubtle weapon. So loud and noisy. I prefer more refined methods of murder. But your kind don't _deserve_ that."

Eric's heart began to beat even harder as the leader walked over to Stafford and Lynch. Eric swallowed nervously, knowing what was coming and knowing that he did not want to see it, but somehow unable to look away.

The leader placed the barrel against the back of Lynch's skull.

He paused.

Then he squeezed the trigger.

Lynch's head vaporized in a thick plume of gore that sprayed all over the wall in front of him. His body flopped forward lifelessly.

"Hmm," the leader said, studying the gun. "It kicks harder than I would have thought." He placed the barrel against Stafford's head. Eric tensed, preparing for the worst. The leader paused. He began to squeeze the trigger.

The elevator doors dinged open. The two soldiers stepped out and crossed the lab. The leader pulled the pistol away from Stafford's head.

"Well?" he asked.

"Shadow Element is dead."

"Hmm. Impressive. No matter, though. We're going to finish up here and-" He paused as a loud, dying hum sounded. The lights began flickering. The anti-teleportation field had failed. "What's that?" he murmured.

Eric grinned. Right on time. Now, it was simply a matter of hoping against hope that-A loud sound, a deep bass hum, began to fill the air.

"What _is_ that?" the leader asked.

"Sir, I think we should-"

There was a brilliant flash of green light. Where there was once a large, open area there were now half a dozen Alien Grunts.

"Oh. Shit," the leader said.

All hell broke loose. Everyone began opening fire. Chaos boiled beneath madly flickering lights. Eric spied his Desert Eagle on the floor and leapt forward. He snatched it and rose to his feet, helping Walker stand up. He aimed the Eagle at the nearest cluster of Black Ops soldiers and emptied the clip, then began reloading as he ran for the exit. The door was still open and he all but jumped through it.

The corridor beyond was empty. He spun around, pistol raised, ready for anything. Allan ran out of the door and joined him. A moment later, Sharpio appeared with Stafford. Both of them were all but carrying Walker.

"Oh, shit! I should've helped you-" Eric said, suddenly guilty.

"Sorry later, run now," Walker growled. He was bleeding profusely now.

"Come on, I know where we can go," Sharpio said.

They left the battle behind in a hurry. Eric figured that the Alien Grunts would overrun the Black Ops troops before too long and knew that he was hoping against hope that they'd wipe each other out. Sharpio led them to an elevator and smashed the button with his fist. The doors opened a moment later and they all piled in. He pushed the up button and set Walker down on the ground. Allan immediately grabbed for his medical kit. Eric realized with a sudden terror that Walker's neck was bleeding profusely.

"What the hell happened?" he whispered.

"One of those bullet-bees got him in the neck," Sharpio grunted. Walker was very, very pale now. He was coughing, each cough causing a spray of blood. Abruptly, he reached up and grabbed Eric. He pulled him down until their faces were nearly touching.

"Get. Out. Of. Here...survive." Abruptly, he let go. Eric realized all at once that the Sergeant was dead.

"_Shit_!" Allan screamed, suddenly furious. He threw his medical equipment aside and collapsed against the wall, resting his arms on his knees and putting his forehead against his arms. "I'm so sick of this shit," he moaned.

"Suck it up," Sharpio said.

"I have to agree with Allan...we're screwed," Eric replied.

"No, we're not. I've got a contingency plan. I didn't put much hope in Laidlaw's and Newell's plans. Not far from here is a parking garage near an exit. We can drive out of here. I didn't want it to come to that, but it looks like it has."

"And if it's guarded?" Stafford asked.

"Then we'll shoot our way out," Sharpio growled.

"Come on. All I've got left is my Eagle. You've got that three fifty seven on you. Stafford managed to grab an MP5. Allan's got nothing. How are we gonna get there?" Eric asked. Sharpio knelt without speaking and pried Walker's Desert Eagle from his pale, dead hand and handed it to Allan, who looked up at him for a moment, then took it.

"Get out or die trying. No other options," Sharpio replied. Eric sighed.

"I guess you're right."

The elevator doors opened.

The men headed out.


	15. A Hard Slog

_**Chapter 15  
**-A Hard Slog-_

"You...have _got_...to be shitting me," Eric said.

"I'm afraid not," Sharpio replied.

They stood at the end of the topside entryway to Echo Labs, which was little more than a lobby and a collection of break rooms, storage rooms and bathrooms. Eric stood to the side of one of the main windows, peering cautiously out of it. The window was cracked and stained with blood, just like everything else in Black Mesa at this point. Stretching away from them was another sun-drenched valley.

It was absolutely rife with chaos and combat.

"Tell me the plan again, Sharpio," Eric said without looking back in, still staring at the chaos. Somewhere behind him, Allan and Stafford were searching the building with some hope of finding any spare weapons or bullets.

"There's two places we have to get through, each one connected by a valley. The first is the dormitories for the scientists and security personnel. You can see it from where you're standing. Beyond that is the fuel depot. It's full of fuel. Then another valley. At the end of _that_ valley is the parking garage. Once we hit that, we'll steal a car and just drive away. It's that easy," Sharpio replied. Eric heard the others returning.

"That easy, huh?" he murmured. Something powerful exploded somewhere nearby, rattling the window in its frame.

"We got nothing," Stafford said unhappily.

"Fan-freakin'-tastic," Eric growled, turning away from the window. He stared glumly at his Desert Eagle. It and three clips of ammo were all that stood between him and oblivion. Well, that and his knife, which he still somehow had on him.

"Alright guys, huddle up," Sharpio said. They gathered around the main entrance. "I see Black Ops, Xen aliens, and Race X all tearing it up out there. If we stick to the right side of the canyon, we can probably slip past them all without running into too much trouble. Try not to draw any attention to us. Fire _only_ if you have to. Any questions?"

There were none. Sharpio nodded, then opened the door. They slipped out into the sunshine. Sharpio led the way, Eric right behind him, Allan behind him and Stafford bringing up the rear. They hurried over to the far right side, which seemed the mostly occupied by corpses and began hurrying as swiftly as they could manage.

At first, they made good progress. Eric studied the conflict, amazed despite himself. It appeared to be total chaos. Vortigaunts, Zombies and Alien Grunts mixed it up with Shock Troopers and Pit Drones. Acid-dripping spikes, bullet-bees and bolts of green energy shot every which way. In the middle of the conflict was a full squad of Black Ops troops wielding MP5s and SAWs, shooting at everything that moved.

They reached the halfway point when the first shot was taken at them. A pair of Black Ops troops took interest in them and began spraying their area with MP5 rounds. Eric took out the first one, double-tapping him with two shots through the head. Sharpio gut-shot the second one with his Magnum.

"Run!" Sharpio cried. More Black Ops troops took notice and stared to open fire...only to be crashed into by an Alien Grunt that smashed into them like a runaway freight train. They were sent flying like ninepins. Eric bolted, running full tilt towards the dormitories building. He thought that they might have a straight shot when a pair of Alien Grunts walked into his field of vision. He prepared himself for a hard battle...then a Shock Trooper ran up and opened fire, sending little bolts of pure energy into the Alien Grunts.

They became wrapped up in the battle as a trio of Pit Drones hurried over to back up the Shock Trooper. Eric and the others slipped by them and all but slammed into the front wall of the dormitories building. Eric hit the entry button and hurried in through the doorway. He checked out the lobby while the others hustled in after him.

"Clear!" he called.

"I wouldn't go that far..." Sharpio murmured, looking around the lobby. It was obvious the Black Ops had tried to set up some kind of command post, or an armory at least, here. There were half a dozen foldout tables spread out across the lobby. While there wasn't much left in the way of guns, they had left a lot of explosives.

"Okay...everyone grab some of those trip-mines and start setting them up. You fit them against a wall, preferably low and hit the little button on the top. Do _not_ cross the blue beam that comes out once you set it or else you'll blow your ass straight to hell. Everyone take a corridor, go to the end and start setting them while heading backwards. And set them in every doorway you pass, too. Hustle up!" Sharpio shouted.

Eric grabbed half a dozen of the trip-mines and chose a corridor, hustling down it. He began setting them, listening for anything that might be in the dormitories with them, but it seemed that everyone had chosen to participate in the battle outside. He studied the first trip-mine, found it to be simple and set it successfully at the end of the corridor. It made a soft beep and the blue laser light shot out of it. Eric chuckled darkly and began setting the rest. He finished up the half dozen he had, ran back, got more and set them up, too.

When he was finished, the corridor was lined with the mines. He regrouped with the others, finding they had managed a similar success. Sharpio was packing the front entryway with satchel charges and topped it all of with a trip-mine.

"Let's get the _hell_ out of here," he said. They chose the least mined corridor and moved as quickly as they could. Eric tried to listen and figure out if anyone was coming for them, but he was too focused on the trip-mines. When he stepped over the last one into the secondary lobby, he let out a long breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. He opened the door and looked out. A wave of relief washed over him, everyone appeared to be dead in this valley.

"Come on!" he cried. They left the dormitories behind and made it maybe a quarter length of the valley before a tremendous explosion rocked the area. Eric turned and looked at the building behind them, now spying a huge plume of black smoke rising into the desert skies.

"That should give them some pause," Sharpio said, chuckling grimly. He turned around, then his eyes widened. "Look out!" he screamed, shoving Eric aside. They narrowly avoided a ball of yellow energy, which hit the ground and exploded. Eric spun around and looked up. He felt his guts go cold. Something new. _This_ was why the valley was full of corpses. Four _things_ floated high overhead. They were basically human...though they had enormous, bulbous heads. They began making echoing, screeching sounds.

"Open fire!" Sharpio shouted. Eric raised his Desert Eagle and began firing off rounds. He emptied the clip and only managed to land two shots. The one he'd been shooting turned and shot off another ball of yellow energy at him. He dodged, narrowly, and felt a painful heat wash over his exposed skin. He reloaded and emptied the second clip, with similar results. He reloaded his final clip and fired it off as well.

Nothing. It was still there. Eric began looking around for another weapon. He spied an MP5 next to a Black Ops corpse, ran over, snatched it up, aimed for the floating beast and opened fire. He sprayed the creature with bullets and seemed to hit it at least a dozen times, but still it hovered and hurled balls of yellow energy at them. He abandoned the MP5 and looked around. The others didn't seem to be having much more luck.

Eric continued hunting for something more substantial and nearly tripped over an RPG launcher. He grabbed the rocket propelled grenade launcher and checked the tube. It was loaded. He grinned wickedly, spun around, raised the launcher and targeted the cluster of aliens. He played the laser across their ugly heads and squeezed the trigger. The rocket propelled grenade escaped the tube with a loud _foomph!_

It slammed directly into the central alien. The quartet of them went up in a brilliant burst of flames and the remains were scattered across the valley.

"Woo!" Eric screamed. "Suck it!" He dropped the launcher and laughed shakily. Sharpio walked up and slapped his back.

"Not bad, Bishop. Not bad...now let's get through fuel storage," he said. Eric nodded, laughing a little bit more, feeling the adrenaline pumping through him. They spent a few minutes scavenging for weapons. Eric and Stafford managed to find MP5s and a few spare clips of ammo, Sharpio grabbed some more ammo for his Magnum and Allan managed to find a shotgun. They had almost made it there when Sharpio stopped them.

"Okay, so...this is fuel storage," he said.

"I can see that," Eric replied.

"We need to _not_ fire guns in fuel storage. Or else we'll all blow up," Sharpio said curtly.

"Oh."

"Yeah. So, knives only. Everyone got knives?" They all replied that they did. "Good. Safeties on, knives out. If we have to, we'll just run through. Ready?" They were. "Go."

Sharpio opened the door. He went in first, knife out. Eric was right behind him. He hesitated. They were _surrounded_ by barrels of fuel. They were stacked all along the walls to the ceiling, several rows deep. The stench was unbelievable.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," he groaned. Something moaned up ahead.

"We've got hostiles!" Sharpio shouted. Eric looked across the room. The only thing standing between them and escape were half a dozen Marines turned Zombies. He was at least glad to see that they hadn't had enough time to evolve. He hefted his knife. It would have to do.

"Charge!" Sharpio screamed. They blitzed across the room. Eric took the first one within reach and plunged the blade into the Headcrab down to the hilt. The Zombie began uttering a high-pitched shriek and flailing its arms around. Eric twisted the blade and the Zombie instantly stopped moving and collapsed to the ground, taking his knife with it. He growled and kicked another Zombie back, aiming low as not to get his boot caught in its chest-jaws. He knelt and grabbed the knife and began tugging violently.

After a second, he finally managed to loose it in a spray of blood. He spun and slashed at the Zombie he'd kicked. It was recovering and making a second grab for him. He heard someone scream but didn't have time for that. He managed to get several cuts on the Headcrab, but it didn't seem to be doing enough damage. Finally, frustrated, he drove the blade double-fisted into the thing's face and achieved much the same result.

By the time he managed to free his blade once more, the others had successfully killed the rest of the Zombies.

"I think this might be bad," Allan said, then fell to his knees. The others rushed over him. He was clutching at his neck and bleeding profusely. "One of them got me," he managed.

"Shut up," Stafford replied, grabbing the medical kit off of Allan's belt and prying it open. He pulled Allan's hand away and began tending to the wound. Eric and Sharpio hovered uncertainly by their side for several moments. Stafford did a quick patch job, sealing up the wound to the best of his ability and then slapping a large bandage over it. He injected Allan with a general anti-viral syringe and helped him to his feet.

"It's gonna have to do," he said. "We can sew it up better later."

"I concur," Allan said, wincing in pain.

They made their way over to the exit and opened the door to the final valley. It appeared to be a barren wasteland of a battlefield, empty except for...

"What...what are _those_?" Allan whispered, his voice a horror whisper.

"They look like...tentacles. _Huge_ ones. Tell me we didn't open up Cthulhu's dimension..." Eric groaned.

"Obscure references for later. We need to figure out how to get by this," Sharpio replied.

"Obscure my ass! Lovecraft was-"

"Guys, I'm kind of dying here," Allan said. Eric sighed.

"Sorry. Okay..." He studied the three enormous green tentacles that ended in titanic black claws that were jutting up directly out of the ground in the center of the valley. For now, they seemed to be just...bobbing and weaving gently, almost as though they were weeds caught in a gentle wind.

"Well...I mean, maybe if we just moved as far to the right as we could. I mean, their reach can't be _that_-" He paused as he noticed a lone Zombie, coming from the opposite end of the valley towards them. It groaned and stumbled their way, almost as close as it could be to the wall. They all watched it lurch towards them, arms outstretched, groaning like an idiot...

It had almost passed the tentacles when, abruptly, one of them seemed to go rigid. The claw turned towards the Zombie and then, nearly faster than they could track, it lashed out and turned the Zombie into a pasty red stain on the desert floor.

It slowly returned to its original position.

"Well, nevermind then," Eric murmured. He looked around and listened while the others tried to figure out some way to get past them. His eyes then settled on something to the far left, a dozen meters ahead of them. He grinned and began walking towards it.

"Hey, where are you going-oh...yeah, I think that would work, actually," Sharpio said.

"Everyone stand back!" Eric called. He approached the abandoned Abrams tank with a big smile. He climbed up the side of it, the metal uncomfortably warm in the desert sun, and settled into the interior. He'd never officially been trained on an Abrams, but he'd spent enough time around tanks to know how to turn it on, aim and fire. And that's just what he did. He zeroed the sights at the base of the three tentacles, loaded up a round and fired.

The result was tremendous and wonderful. Thunder cracked the air and a bright flash was birthed. By the time Eric climbed back up out of the tank, he saw bits and pieces of the tentacles splattered across the length of the sandy valley.

"Forget not bad, that was awesome!" Sharpio cried. "You were in the military, weren't you?" he asked as they began their final approach on the parking garage.

"Yeah. Marines. Got kicked out," he replied.

"Tell me about it when we get the hell out of here. There's this bar in Phoenix...man, you wouldn't _believe_ it. I've been meaning to go back for a year now..."

The parking garage was empty. They were alone. Eric was too tired to even feel relief. Instead, he wandered through the flickering, echoing garages, searching the empty, concrete abyss for their salvation.

In the last garage, they found it. While Eric slipped into the front seat of the teal SUV with tinted windows and government plates, Sharpio walked over to the main exit and went about opening it. Allan and Stafford climbed in the back seat. Eric hunted for the keys and finally found them in the sun visor.

"Why are they _always_ in the fricking sun visor?" he muttered, feeding the proper key into the ignition. "Seriously, I've _never_ done that and yet you always see that stupid shit in the movies. Why would anyone ever leave their keys in the sun visor!?" he cried. The car kicked to life.

"My friend, I think you think too much," Allan replied.

"Yeah, maybe," Eric muttered. Sharpio finished opening the door and jogged back to the SUV. He climbed into the passenger's seat.

"All clear, let's get the _hell_ out of here."

"Couldn't agree with you more," Eric replied.

A sense of disbelief washed over him as he drove into the sunshine. There were gates at the end of the road, but they were already open. He took it as a sign and blasted past them, picking up speed as he made his way away from Black Mesa.

"Holy crap, we're actually leaving," Allan said, his voice quiet and faraway.

"It feels like a dream," Eric replied.

"Think of all the things we have to do..." Stafford murmured. "We'll have to go to ground. Surely the government will be looking for us..."

He broke off as, abruptly, a tremendous explosion ripped the earth asunder. A blinding red and yellow light seemed to fill everything. Eric glanced reflexively in the rearview mirror and caught the briefest of glimpses of that nightmare-inducing visage...the mushroom cloud.

"No," he whispered, pushing the gas as far as it would go. The car began to tremble violently and abruptly it was lifted off the ground.

Eric screamed something and then the whole world went white.


	16. Epilogue: He-lllo, Missster Bisss-hop

_**Epilogue  
**-He-lllo, Missster Bisss-hop-_

The world was white. Then it was black. Eric felt as though he were floating in a sea of eternal darkness. He had no idea how long he floated there in that deep abyss, but something finally seemed to form around him. It took a moment, but the uncertain shapes surrounding him slowly resolved into...a tram cart. Like the one he rode to work every morning.

"What the hell?" he whispered, his own voice sounding alien to him somehow. He tried to look out the windows and saw only more darkness. Abruptly, the door opened and, from the nothingness around him, a man stepped in. Eric studied him, somehow certain that he should be somewhere else, that he should be...dead.

"Who are you?" he demanded suddenly, taking a step forward. The man was tall, thin and extremely pale. He had slicked-back black hair and eyes that might as well have been chips of blue ice carved from a deep-space comet. He wore a pressed, immaculate blue-gray business suit with a pitch-black tie. He carried a black briefcase. Smiling, the man reached up and adjusted his tie very slightly. He looked directly at Eric, his eyes boring into Eric's.

"He-llo, Missster Bisss-hop...a plea-sure to fin-all-y me_et_ you," he said, his speech incredibly broken and awkward. "My name isssss irr-elevent. Sufficcccce to say that I am here to _off_-er you an...oppur-_tun_ity."

Here he smiled and flicked an invisible speck from his shoulder.

"Not to im-_ply_ that you have a cho_ice_, in the mat-ter."

"What the _hell_ are you talking about!?" Eric cried. "Who _are_ you!? What happened to the car? The nuke?! The others!?" he demanded.

But the blackness was already beginning to come back, consuming his world. Eric tried to advance on the mysterious suit-wearing man. He managed one step, then another, his arms raising slowly...but it was like moving through a sea of syrup. He was becoming drowsy. Lethargic beyond belief.

The darkness moved in and consumed him.

The last thing he saw was the smiling man in the business suit.


End file.
